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0 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PLJTES 

PAGE 

View  over  the   Forest  from   near    Malwood.       Etched  bv  Alexander 

Ansted Frontispiece 

A  Forest  Heath,  near  Lyndhurst.     Etched  by  John  Fullwood       to  face     22 

The  Rufus  Glade.      By  Lancelot  Speed ,,     ,,        54 

Herding  Swine  in  the  New  Forest.      By  Lancelot  Speed „     ,,        76 


ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  THE  TEXT 


In  the  Forest  near  Lvndhurst 


9 


The  Queen's  House,  Lyndhurst 11 

Cottage  at  Lyndhurst i? 

A  Dead  Giant,  Mark  Ash 15 

Charcoal  Burner's  Hut,  Bolderwood 10 

Matley  Passage  and  Matley  Bog 25 

Knightwood  Oak,  Mark  Ash 29 

The  Heronry  at  Vinney  Ridge 31 

The  Adder-Catcher       ■j-j 

Brockenhurst  Church ^r 

Bridge  near  Brockenhurst 36 


The  Forest  Ponies 


45 


218395 


4  LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Beaulieu  Abbey 59 

Gate  House,  Beaulieu       62 

Beaulieu 63 

Interior  of  Beaulieu  Church 65 

The  Edge  of  the  Forest,  near  Lymington 67 

The  Harbour,  Lymington 69 

A  Creek  on  the  Beaulieu  River 70 

Beaulieu  River  at  Buckler's  Hard 72 

Highcliffe 77 


THE    NEW    FOREST 


CHAPTER   I 

THE     CENTRAL     FOREST    AND     ITS     CAPITAL 

The  wholly  foreign  character  of  its  creation — Its  vast  extent — The  alleged  cruelty  in  its 
aff'oresting — Modern  views — The  nature  of  forest  laws — The  forest  preserved  by 
their  survival — Lynd hurst  the  centre  and  capital  of  the  Forest — The  Verderers''  Hall 
and  Court — The  pilgrimage  to  Mark  Ash — Swan  Green — The  wild  and  open  forest — 
The  Lymington  stream — The  hush  of  the  forest — The  progressive  splendour  of  the  trees — 
The  wealth  of  ornatnent  in  the  old  woods — The  charcoal-burner^ s  hut — Voices  of  the 
forest — Alone  in  the  sanctuary. 

The  historical  link  which  the  New  Forest  has  with  the  associations 
in  every  English  mind  is  fixed  to  the  era  of  the  Normans.  It  was  the 
foreign  Norman  and  Angevin  Kings  of  England  who  made  and  used  the 
forest.  It  lay  in  the  same  county,  and  within  a  ride  of  their  palace 
and  capital  at  Winchester;  and  they  took  their  sport  from  Mai  wood  on 
their  way  to  Rouen,  riding  down  after  a  few  days'  deer-shooting  to 
Beaulieu  or  Lymington,  where  the  galleys  waited  to  take  them  across  the 
Channel,  much  as  the  royal  yachts  wait  to  take  Her  Majesty  Queen 
Victoria  across   the  Solent    to  Osborne. 

But  the  subsequent  part  played  by  the  forest  as  a  hunting  ground 
for  kings,  and  a  district  exempt  from  the  general  law  of  the  land,  and 
at  the  absolute  disposal  of  the  sovereign,  is  entirely  eclipsed  by  the 
picturesque  and  dramatic  incidents  which  tradition  has  assigned  to  its 
violent  creation  by  the  first  Norman  monarch,  and  its  requital,  not  only 
by  the  violent  death  of  the  second,  but  by  those  of  two  other  children 


6  THE    NEW  FORESr 

of  the  Conqueror  in  this  fatal  precinct.  His  son,  Richard,  who  was 
supposed  to  be  in  his  disposition  the  special  image  of  his  father,  when  not 
yet  of  an  age  to  be  girded  with  the  belt  of  knighthood,  was  the  first  victim. 
He  is  said  to  have  been  fatally  injured  by  the  branch  of  a  tree  when 
riding  after  a  stag;  and  there  is  a  record  in  Domesday  Book  of  lands 
restored  by  his  father  to  their  rightful  owner  as  an  offering  for  Richard's 
soul.^  The  second  son  of  the  Conqueror  who  died  in  the  forest  was 
another  Richard,  an  illegitimate  child,  whose  death  seems  to  have  been 
forgotten  in  the  greater  catastrophes  of  the  death  of  the  elder  Richard 
and  of  Rufus,   which   preceded  and  followed  it. 

Whatever  belief  is  to  be  given  to  the  tale  of  cruelty  in  its 
afforesting,  the  size  and  character  of  the  district,  which  the  Conqueror 
devoted  to  his  use  as  a  "  single  and  mighty  Nimrod,"  by  the  simple  act  of 
putting  it  under  forest  law,  is  a  measure  of  the  scope  of  that  imperial 
mind.  The  area  was  as  large  as  that  of  the  Isle  of  Wight.  It  was 
bounded  on  the  north  by  the  line  from  the  river  Avon  to  the  river  Ouse, 
separating  Hampshire  from  Wiltshire  ;  by  the  river  Avon  on  the  west, 
down  to  Christchurch.  By  the  sea  from  Christchurch  to  Calshot  Castle  ; 
by  the  Southampton  Water,  and  by  the  river  Ouse.  Within  these 
boundaries  are  about  224  square  miles,  containing  143,360  acres  of  land, 
of  which  even  now  90,000  acres  are  still  within  the  boundary  of  the 
forest.  Its  natural  features  were  such  as  to  make  it  a  hunter's  paradise. 
From  the  swirling  salmon  river  at  Christchurch,  to  the  wide  lagoon  of 
Southampton  Water,  it  exhibited  and  still  contains,  almost  every  natural 
feature  which  made  the  forests,  "  reguni  -penetralia  et  eorum  maxima 
delicia,'"  "the  chief  delight  of  kings,  and  their  secret  and  secure  retreat." 
Fronted  by  the  sheltered  waters  of  an  inland  sea,  and  pierced  by  the  four 
wide,  beautiful,  and  commodious  estuaries  of  Christchurch,  Lymington, 
Beaulieu,  and  Southampton  Water,  its  heaths,  pools,  wastes,  thickets  and 
bogs,  studded  and  interlaced  with  good  ground,  producing  deep  and 
ancients  woods,  made  it  a  natural  and  unrivalled  sanctuary  for  game. 

The  charge  against  the  Conqueror  of  "  wasting  "  this  district  appears 

in  its  most  violent  form  in  the  pages  of  Lingard.      "  Though  the  king 

possessed  sixty-eight  forests,  besides  parks  and  chases,  in  different  parts 

of  England,  he  was  not  satisfied,  but  for  the  occasional  accommodation  of 

^   Freeman,  Norman  Conquest^  Vol.  iv.  p.  609. 


rHE    NEW  FOREST  7 

his  court,  afforested  an  extensive  tract  of  country  lying  between  Winchester 
and  the  sea-coast.  The  inhabitants  were  expelled  ;  the  cottages  and 
churches  were  burnt  ;  and  more  than  thirty  square  miles  of  a  rich  and 
populous  district  were  withdrawn  from  cultivation  and  converted  into  a 
wilderness,  to  afford  sufficient  range  for  the  deer,  and  ample  space  for 
the  royal  diversion."  "Many  populous  towns  and  villages  and  thirty-six 
parish  churches,"  is  the  more  circumstantial  estimate  of  others,  Voltaire 
first  questioned  this  tradition  on  grounds  of  general  historical  criticism. 
Cobbett  easily  detected  its  improbability,  from  a  mere  examination  of 
the  soil  of  the  forest.  It  could  never  have  been  a  "  rich  and  populous 
district "  simply  because,  for  the  greater  part,  the  soil  is  among  the 
poorest  in  the  south  of  England.  Thirty  thousand  acres  were  in  1849 
reported  unfit  either  for  agriculture,  the  growth  of  trees,  or  pasturage. 
The  test  of  figures  also  throws  a  doubt  on  the  destruction  of  the  villages. 
In  the  original  area  of  the  fiDrest  there  still  remain  eleven  parish 
churches  on  sites  where  churches  were  in  existence  before  the  time  of  the 
Conqueror.  "  If  he  destroyed  thirty-six  parish  churches,  what  a  popu- 
lous country  this  must  have  been  !  "  writes  Cobbett.  "  There  must  have 
been  forty-seven  parish  churches  ;  so  that  there  was  over  this  whole 
district,  one  parish  church  to  every  four-and-three-quarter  square  miles." 

The  modern  inference  from  these  criticisms  goes  to  the  extreme 
of  considering,  that  in  making  the  forest,  William  confined  himself 
to  enforcing  the  forest  law  within  its  boundaries,  thereby  reserving 
the  exclusive  right  of  sporting  for  himself,  while  "  men  retained 
possession  of  their  lands,  their  woods,  mills,  or  other  property,  just  as 
before,  save  for  the  stringent  regulations  of  the  forest  law."  ^ 

Even  so  the  interference  with  liberty  and  property,  due  to  this 
extraordinary  Norman  provision  for  the  amusement  of  the  monarch  is 
almost  incredible   to   modern   ideas. 

"  Forest  law  "  made  of  the  area  to  which  it  might  at  any  moment  be 
applied,  a  kind  of  "  proclaimed  district,"  where  the  law  of  the  land  at 
once  ceased  to  run,  and  the  rights  of  property  only  existed  under  con- 
ditions which  were  mainly^  but  not  entirely,  directed  to  the  preservation 
of  game.     Its  excuse  was  that  it  was  a  convenient  method  of  placing  wild 

1  Arboriculture  of  the   New  Forest,  by  the  Hon.  G.  Lascelles,  Deputy  Surveyor,  New- 
Forest. 


8  THE    NEW  FOREST 

districts,  infested  by  outlaws,  under  the  strong  government  of  the  king, 
in  place  of  the  timid  "  presentments  "  of  frightened  villagers,  and  that  it 
formed  a  reserve  of  men  and  munitions  of  war  for  the  sovereign.  The 
assize  of  the  forest  of  1184  by  Henry  II.  gives  a  good  notion  of  the 
working  of  these  laws  in  the  New  Forest,  and  a  clue  to  the  survivals 
which  are  still  there  found.  No  one  might  sell  or  give  anything  from 
his  own  wood,  if  within  the  forest,  which  would  destroy  it  :  only  fire- 
wood {estoverid)  was  to  be  taken.  The  result  was  that  no  large  timber 
could  be  felled,  and  this  therefore  ceased  to  be  private  property  within 
the  Crown  forests.  The  king's  foresters  were  to  be  answerable  if  this 
wood  was  destroyed.  No  one  was  to  agist  (turn  out)  his  cattle  before  the 
king  "  agisted "  his.  The  king  could  agist  his  fifteen  days  before 
Michaelmas,  and  closed  the  woods  fifteen  days  after  Michaelmas.  No 
spring  grazing  was  allowed,  so  saplings  and  seedlings  had  a  chance  to 
grow.  Open  spaces  were  to  be  cut  where  deer  could  be  shot  at,  like 
the  "  rides  "  in  our  pheasant  covers.  No  tanner  or  bleacher  of  skins  was 
to  live  in  a  forest,  and  "  no  receivers  or  thieves." 

But  the  rigour  of  forest  law  was  mitigated  in  the  days  of  Henry  III., 
the  whole  of  whose  charter  of  the  forests  is  framed  against  the  an- 
noyance which  the  inhabitants  had  felt  from  the  severity  of  the 
former  laws.  It  provided  that  every  free  man  should  be  allowed  to 
"  agist "  his  own  wood  in  a  forest  when  he  pleased,  and  to  have  his  own 
eyries  of  hawks,  sparrow-hawks,  falcons,  eagles  and  herons.  It  granted 
permission  to  drive  pigs  and  cattle  through  the  forest,  and  let  them 
spend  a  night  on  the  king's  land,  with  other  privileges,  which  were 
probably  the  origin  of  many  "  forest  rights "  now  claimed  in  the 
district.  Are  we  then  to  conclude  that  the  hardships  suffered  by  the 
inhabitants  of  the  "  Ytene,"  the  Saxon  name  of  the  New  Forest,  were 
limited  to  such  as  were  incidental  to  the  enforcement  of  forest  laws  '^. 
Such  a  consoling  answer  can  scarcely  be  given.  In  spite  of  the  inaccuracies 
of  the  form  in  which  it  has  come  down  to  us,  the  tradition  of  the 
wasting  of  this  particular  forest  and  the  confiscation  of  land^  are  too 
unanimous  to  be  disregarded. 

^  Freeman  quotes  an  instance  of  confiscation  from  Domesday.  "The  sons  of  Godric 
Ralf  hold  under  the  King  at  Minstrad.  Their  father  had  three  hides  and  a  half  of 
land.     Now  his  sons  have  only  half  a  hide.      The  rest  of  the  ground  is  in  the  forest." 


lo  THE    NEW  FOREST 

The  "  stiffness  "  and  cruelty  of  such  a  course  are  too  much  in 
keeping  with  the  character  of  the  king,  who  turned  into  a  desert 
the  whole  district  between  the  Humber  and  the  Tees.  The  forest 
was  perfectly  suited  by  site  and  soil  for  William's  purpose,  and  it 
is  difficult  to  doubt  that  in  its  afforestation  hardships  were  inflicted, 
which  were  remembered  long  after  the  general  hatred  of  the  Normans 
had  died  away. 

But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  though  the  rigours  of  the  forest 
laws  as  a  means  of  preserving  game  relaxed,  the  protection  given  by 
them  to  the  woods  was  never  withdrawn,  and  it  is  to  them  that  we 
owe  the  preservation  of  the  ancient  timber  until  the  present  day. 
When  laxly  administered,  as  in  the  days  of  Charles  I.  and  the  Common- 
wealth, the  woods  have  been  invariably  destroyed  ;  when  enforced,  as 
by  James  I.  and  later  in  the  days  of  William  III.  the  trees  have  increased, 
and  descended  to  us  as  one  of  the  finest  national  inheritances.  The 
present  management  of  the  forest,  under  an  act  passed  in  1877,  is 
based  on  the  principle  that  all,  except  some  20,000  acres,  inclosed  since 
the  year  1700,  shall  remain  open  and  wild.  But  in  this  wild  area 
forest  law  still  runs,  and  protects  the  timber  from  waste  and  robbery. 

In  the  Verderers'  Hall  at  Lyndhurst  the  survivals  of  forest 
law  and  forest  customs  appear  by  the  dumb  witness  of  fixed  engines 
of  justice  as  primitive  as  the  oaks  of  Brockenhurst.  One  end 
of  the  bare  old  chamber  is  fitted  up  as  a  court,  in  which  offenders 
against  the  custom  of  the  forest,  wood  and  fern  stealers,  or  those 
who  have  transgressed  the  limits  within  which  cattle  may  be  kept, 
or  other  liberties  of  the  forest,  are  presented  by  the  "  agisters,"  who 
play  the  part  of  the  knights  from  the  hundreds,  and  townsmen  from 
the  township,  who  "  presented  "  criminals  in  the  shire  moots.  "  Pre- 
sented," the  offender  certainly  is ;  for  he  is  exposed  to  the  public 
view  in  the  most  primitive  dock  existing  in  England.  The  prisoner 
sits  on  a  kind  of  perch,  to  which  he  climbs  by  a  step.  Behind  this 
is  a  square  back  with  cross-pieces  of  black  oak,  with  the  rough  axe 
marks  still  showing,  and  immediately  in  front,  beyond  the  narrow 
interval  of  the  clerk's  table  is  the  full  bench  of  verderers.  Assuming, 
as  is  probable,  that  this  is  a  copy  of  the  most  ancient  arrangement  of 
such    courts,    we   can    imagine   how   some   trembling    wretch,    with    the 


12  THE    NEW  FOREST 

prospect  of  maiming  or  blinding  before  him,  must  have  felt  before 
the  scowl  of  the  forest  rangers  of  Norman  or  Angevin  kings,  on 
this  seat  of  justice  over  against  him.  Besides  the  rude  accommodation 
for  judges  and  prisoners,  the  court  contains  a  recess  filled  with  books 
on  forest  law  which,  by  that  grace  of  congruity  which  seems  inseparable 
from  everything  in  this  strangely  perfect  region,  are  screened  by  the 
most  appropriate  curtain  that  could  be  devised,  the  skin  of  a  red  deer. 
The  walls  are  decorated  by  horns  of  deer,  red  and  fallow.  Whatever 
the  history  of  the  great  stirrup,  which  hangs  upon  the  wall,  and  is  said 
to  have  belonged  to  William  Rufus,  it  is  a  notable  relic,  and  thoroughly 
in  place  in  this  hall  of  woodland  justice.  It  is  clearly  the  stirrup  in 
which  the  thickly-mailed  feet  of  the  days  of  plate  armour,  with  their 
broad  iron  toes  were  thrust,  thick  enough  and  broad  enough  to  give 
"support"  for  the  most  ponderous  horseman  in  his  coat  of  steel; 
and  so  wide,  that  the  legend  that  all  dogs  which  could  not  be 
passed  through  it  were  considered  possible  enemies  to  game,  and 
therefore  maimed  does  not  seem  improbable,  except  in  regard  to  dates. 

Lyndhurst  is  by  size  and  position  the  true  capital  of  the  forest. 
There  stands  the  ancient  Queen's  House,  to  which  the  Verderers'  Hall 
is  attached,  and  in  which  the  Deputy-Surveyor  of  the  Forest  has  his 
residence,  and  on  the  high  mound  of  natural  verdure  in  the  centre  of 
the  town,  the  soaring  spire  of  its  church  shoots  up,  and  dominates  the 
immense  tract  of  woodland,  of  which  it  forms  the  natural  centre. 

The  town  has  no  mean  outskirts,  or  squalid  surroundings.  The 
woodlands  run  up  to  its  old  houses  like  a  sea ;  and  the  parks  surrounding 
the  fine  mansions,  which  fringe  the  forest  capital,  are  mere  incidents  in  its 
scenery,  lost  and  absorbed  in  the  wild  woods  around  them.  Cuf?"nalls 
Park,  a  grassy  hill  clothed  with  oaks  and  beeches,  lies  just  outside  the 
town,  and  leads  the  eye  by  an  easy  transition,  from  the  formal  gardens  of 
the  Lyndhurst  houses,  to  the  uncovenanted  graces  of  the  natural  forest. 
Beyond  the  park  the  road  divides  to  Burley  and  Christchurch  on  the 
left,  to  Ringwood  on  the  right,  and  at  the  parting  of  the  ways, 
the  forest  at  once  and  without  reserve  flings  itself  across  the  field 
of  sight.  Thence  to  Mark  Ash,  the  most  renowned  of  all  the  ancient 
woods,  the  way  lies  through  scenes  in  an  ascending  scale  of  beauty  which 
mark  this  as  the  first  path  to  be  trodden  by  the   pilgrim    and   stranger. 


THE    NEW  FOREST 


13 


The  understanding  needs  time  to  eddy  round  the  crowding  forms  that 
claim  its  homage.  It  is  the  Eleusinian  Way,  along  which  the  genius  of  the 
forest  seems  to  lead  the  neophyte  gently  by  the  hand,  saying,  "  Look  on 
this,  and  that,  and  that,  first  grasp  the  lesser,  then  the  greater  mysteries, 
until  with  eyes  and  understanding  opened  you  may  enter  and  enjoy  the 
earthly  paradise  of  perfect  beauty  which  lies  beyond." 

Thus  the  mind  keeps  its  sense  of  proportion,  and  the  excitement  and 


Cottage  at   L'^ndhurst. 


Stimulus  of  this  appeal  to  the  sense  of  admiration  is  maintained,  as  the 
appetite  grows  with  the  beauty  which  feeds  it.  Slow  and  lingering  should 
be  the  tread,  silent  and  solitary  the  traveller,  in  a  first  journey 
to  the  high  places  of  the  forest,  assured  that,  though  the  first  steps  are 
through  the  scenes  of  laughing  rustic  prettiness,  by  lawns  and  groves, 
the  playgrounds  of  the  forest  children,  and  pastures  of  the  forest  cattle, 
ground  that  in  other  times  would  have  been  sacred  to  Faunus  and  Pan, 
and  all  their  merry  crew,  he  will  at  last  pass  beyond  the  ways  of  men, 
and  find  himself  face  to  face  with  masterpieces  of  Nature's  hand,  before 
which  he  must  stand  silent  and  amazed. 


14  THE    NEW  FOREST 

From  CufFnalls  Park  two  winding  roads  lead  up  the  steep  ascent 
on  either  hand.  In  the  space  between,  sloping  gently  upwards  towards 
the  light  is  neither  field  nor  fence,  but  against  the  sky-line  is  ranged 
a  crescent  of  oaks  and  beeches,  fronted  by  most  ancient  thorns. 
Three  shapes,  three  colours  distinguish  tree  from  tree,  through  their 
centre  a  green  glade  winds  up  into  the  wood,  and  from  their  feet 
a  smooth  lawn  of  turf  flows  gently  down  into  the  point  at  which 
the   roads  divide,    watched  on   either  hand   by  a  sentinel  oak. 

"  Swan  Green  "  is  the  name  of  this  beautiful  lawn.  Beyond  its 
slope  lies  the  village  of  Emery  Down,  after  which  the  signs  and 
sounds  of  human  habitation  disappear  with  a  suddenness  almost  startling. 
The  road  lies  through  rolling  tracts  of  the  most  wild  and  ancient  forest 
land.  Right  and  left  the  slopes  are  clothed  with  trees  in  the  prime  and 
vigour  of  their  age.  Some  few  are  oaks  ;  but  the  beech  is  the  indigen- 
ous, or  perhaps  the  growing  tree  of  this  stately  tract  of  forest,  and  from 
this  point  onwards  the  mind  is  incessantly  invited  to  consider  the  manifold 
beauties  of  form  which  even  one  species  of  forest  tree  presents. 

There  seems  no  limit  to  the  hall  of  columns  which  fades  away  into 
dim  distance  in  the  wood,  though  the  space  between  the  stem  is  clear 
and  open.  The  gray  trunks  shoot  straight  upwards  to  the  sky  each  with 
its  smooth  surrounding  lawn.  The  tallest  beeches  which  spring  on  the 
slope  of  the  hill-sides  seem  to  draw  back  with  a  certain  reticence  from 
the  broad  pathways  of  the  glades,  drooping  their  branches  downward  and 
wrapping  them  round  their  feet  with  a  dainty  and  almost  feminine  dignity 
and  reserve.  Others  grow  like  oaks,  flinging  their  branches  abroad  in 
wild  disordered  tangles. 

There  are  those  among  them  which  have  already  passed  their  prime, 
and  yet  scarcely  show  the  symptoms  of  decay.  In  many  beeches  the 
first  years  of  decline  add  dignity  to  their  forms.  The  tree  dies  from  the 
top  ;  but  at  first  this  appears  only  by  a  cessation  of  upward  growth. 
The  branches  at  the  summit  thicken,  cluster,  and  multiply,  like  the 
antlers  on  an  old  stag's  horns,  giving  to  the  whole  massive  and  weighty 
proportions  in  strange  contrast  to  the  usual  graceful  and  feathery  outlines 
of  its  race.  In  others,  further  advanced  in  the  stages  of  decay,  the 
vigour  of  the  lower  branches  so  arrests  the  eye,  that  it  scarcely  travels 
beyond  the  mass  of  leafage,  though  above  and  from   the  centre   of  the 


THE    NEW  FOREST 


15 


healthy  boughs  an  upright  growth  of  bare  gray  limbs  rises  grimly  naked 
and  alone. 

Some  two  miles  from  Lyndhurst  the  hush  of  the  forest  begins.  If 
the  wind  is  still,  and  the  trees  motionless,  there  is  a  silence  which  can  be 
felt.  In  winter  or  early  spring,  before  the  summer  migrants  have  arrived, 
or  the  hum  of  insects  has  begun  to  stir  the  air,  the  sense  of  hearing  is 
not  excited  by  any  form  of  sound.      There  are  neither  men  nor  children 


J   Dead  Giant,   Mark   Ask. 


in  this  part  of  the  wood,  the  cattle  are  away  on  distant  lawns,  the  deer 
are  hidden  in  the  thick  inclosures,  and  the  great  birds  which  haunt  the 
forest  are  away,  in  the  still  grander  and  more  solemn  precincts  of 
the  most  ancient  woods.  Beyond  Emery  Down  the  high  wood  gives 
place  to  a  rolling  natural  park,  clothed  with  heather,  cotton  grass,  and 
gray  whortle  bushes,  and  studded  with  single  trees,  or  small  groups,  in 
pairs  and  triplets,  of  perfect  form.  Here  is  seen  that  phase  of  beauty  so 
often  desired  and  seldom  found,  distance  in  the  forest,  bounded  only  by 


i6  "THE    NEW  FOREST 

a  far-ofF  misty  screen  of  luxuriant  wood.  Beyond  this  open  park,  the 
imagination  is  kept  in  constant  excitement  and  expectation  by  the 
increasing  size  and  beauty  of  the  trees.  Each  group  seems  to  surpass 
the  Jast,  and  to  mark  the  ultimate  limits  of  grace  and  size,  until  some- 
thing even  grander  and  more  stately  takes  the  pride  of  place.  Their 
splendour  dominates  the  mind  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  subjects  of 
thought.  You  become  a  connoisseur  not  only  in  their  general  beauty 
but  in  its  particular  forms.  You  analyse  them  into  types,  grades,  and 
permanent  varieties,  and  no  longer  compare  them  promiscuously,  but 
form  standards  for  the  different  classes.  Some  of  the  finest  ancient 
beeches  have  apparently  been  pollarded,  and  so  far  from  this  proving  a 
disfigurement  in  their  ripe  maturity,  it  gives  them  a  variety  of  form 
and  a  spread  of  limb,  which  makes  a  fine  contrast  with  the  towering 
domes  which  top  the  single  stems  of  the  natural  tree.  Many  of  the 
pollards  seem  to  come  late  into  leaf,  and  the  effect  is  particularly  fine 
when  in  spring  their  ruddy  buds  surround  some  other  forest  giant  in 
the  full  glory  of  early  growth. 

On  the  left  side  of  the  road,  some  two  and  a  half  miles  beyond  Emery 
Down,  there  is  such  a  group  of  immense  spreading  pollards,  above  which 
towers  the  rounded  head  of  an  unshrouded  tree,  capped  with  a  cloud  of 
vivid  green  floating  leaf-buds. 

Opposite  the  beech  circle,  a  low  line  of  alders  gives  promise  of  a 
swamp,  and  the  ground  descends  into  a  "bottom";  not  the  squashy 
river  of  grass  usually  known  by  that  name  in  the  Surrey  coombes,  but 
a  flat  swampy  valley  of  gray  and  lichen-covered  heather  and  cotton- 
grass,  scored  and  intersected  by  the  manifold  windings  of  a  slow, 
dark  stream,  curling  round  masses  of  cattle-gnawed  and  ivy-strangled 
alders  and  sallows,  heaped  and  encumbered  with  soft  mounds  of  black 
and  gray  mud,  studded  with  little  bulbous  oak  stems,  stunted  and 
decayed,  and  shattered  by  the  lightning  of  the  thunder  clouds  which 
follow  the  water.  The  struggle  for  life  against  water  and  lightning 
must  also  be  made  heavier  by  the  force  of  the  wind  in  this  valley  of 
desolation,  for  even  the  tough  alders  had  been  uprooted  by  the  gales, 
and  lay  prostrate  in  the  marsh,  with  cavernous  hollows  beneath  their 
roots  haunted  by  water-rats  and  tiny  trout.  In  the  most  stagnant  parts 
white  limbs  of  drowned  oaks  raise  their  skeleton  arms  above  the  marsh. 


THE    NEW  FOREST  17 

and  the  ragged  ponies  which  graze  round  the  margin,  test  carefully  at 
each  step  the  ground  in  which  so  many  of  their  companions  have  sunk 
and  perished  when  weak  with  winter  and  famine. 

The  colouring  of  this  swampy  hollow  is  in  complete  contrast  to  the 
brilliant  tints  of  the  sound  lawns  and  high  woods.  It  has  only  two  tones, 
gray  and  black.  Yet  even  there  the  finishing  touch  of  nature  completes 
the  picture.  The  black  stream  and  alder  clumps  are  fringed  and  studded 
with  golden  marsh  marigolds,  and  over  the  gray  mud  creeps  an  exquisite 
little  plant  with  five-lobed  leaves  and  gray  starry  flowers  like  silver  stone- 
crop.  A  low  ridge  of  better  soil  divides  this  slow  rivulet  of  the  swamp 
from  the  bright  waters  of  a  typical  New  Forest  stream,  the  Lymington 
river.  On  its  banks  the  solemn  beeches  once  more  cluster,  and  the 
hurrying  stream  goes  dancing  through  the  wood  golden  clear  with  topaz 
lights,  past  the  lines  of  columned  trees,  slipping  from  pool  to  pool  with 
little  impatient  rushes,  resting  a  moment  in  the  deeper  pools,  then  climb- 
ing the  pebble  beds  which  bar  them  in,  and  hurrying  down  to  the  sea, 
at   Lymington  Haven. 

This  river,  like  that  at  Beaulieu,  belongs  wholly  to  the  forest. 
Here  it  is  a  mere  brook,  with  exquisitely  rounded  banks  of  turf  and 
moss,  as  if  the  wood  fairies  who  put  the  acorn  and  beech  nuts  to  bed 
for  the  winter  had  tucked  in  the  coverlet  on  either  side  and  then 
embroidered  it  with  flowers.  The  pools  are  full  of  enormous  "boatmen" 
which  lurk  under  the  banks  and  dart  out  at  every  leaf,  insect  or 
stick  which  comes  floating  down  the  stream.  Each  morsel  is  seized, 
pulled  about  and  examined  by  the  creatures,  like  a  company  of 
custom-house  officers  at  a  port,  and  as  a  steady  rain  of  debris  from  the 
trees  descends  upon  the  stream  throughout  the  day  they  are  kept  busy 
from  dawn  till  dusk.  Even  so  near  its  source  this  stream  sometimes 
overflows  its  banks.  In  one  spot  the  whole  of  the  surface  roots  of  a 
beech  have  been  pared  clear  of  soil  as  if  by  a  trowel.  It  is  not  a  large 
tree,  but  the  spread  of  root  is  fifteen  paces  across. 

West  of  the  river  the  ancient  trees  once  more  close  in  towards  the 
road,  and  beyond  them  on  either  side  are  younger  woods  planted  by  the 
Crown.  Very  few  young  trees  appear  in  this  part  of  the  old  forest,  but 
on  the  right  hand  of  the  path  is  a  beautiful  example  of  tree  protecting 
tree  from  the  destroying  cattle.     A   most  ancient   crab-tree,   hoary  with 

B 


1 8  THE    NEW  FOREST 

lichen  and  green  with  ivy,  has  thrown  its  protecting  arms  round  the  stem 
of  a  fine  young  oak.  The  smooth  clean  stem  now  shoots  up  clear  of  the 
old  crabtree,  whose  delicate  pink  blossom  mixed  with  the  black  ivy 
berries,  shows  that  it  is  vigorous  still  in  spite  of  its  double  burden  of 
carrying  the  ivy  and  caring  for  the  oak. 

An  example  of  the  astonishing  detail  and  completeness  of  the  natural 
beauties  of  the  forest,  beauty  presented  on  a  scale  so  large,  that  the 
absence  of  detail  and  ornament  might  well  pass  unobserved,  may  be 
seen  round  the  stem  of  every  great  tree  that  fronts  the  road.  Take  for 
instance  the  base  of  the  beech  column  which  stands  opposite  to  the  grass 
track  that  leads  to  the  left  to  the  charcoal  burner's  hut  below  Mark  Ash. 
It  is  the  base  of  a  compound  column,  thicker  than  the  piers  of  Durham 
Cathedral,  with  seven  projecting  pilasters.  The  bark  is  like  gray  frosted 
silver,  crusted  in  parts  with  a  scale  ornament  of  lichen,  and  in  the 
interstices  between  the  pillars  with  short  golden-brown  moss.  The 
rounded  niches  which  encircle  its  base  are  laid  out  as  natural  gardens  ; 
which  in  April  of  the  present  year  were  planted  and  arranged  as  follows. 
In  one  a  violet  bed,  covered  with  blossoms  which  touched  the  bark  of 
the  trunk.  In  the  next  a  briar-rose,  a  foot  high  in  young  leaf.  In  the 
third  three  curling  fronds  of  bracken  fern.  In  the  fourth  a  moss-grown 
billet  of  sere  wood,  and  a  pile  of  last  year's  beech  mast.  In  the  fifth  a 
young  woodbine,  which  had  slipped  into  the  inmost  crevice  between 
the  sheltering  pilasters,  and  was  already  adorned  with  little  whorls  of 
green  leaves.  In  the  sixth  a  wood  sorrel,  with  trefoils  of  exquisite  green- 
like chrysoprase,  and  in  the  seventh  niche  four  seedling  hollies,  a  tiny 
rowan  tree,  and  a  seedling  beech  as  high  as  a  pencil.  The  whole  was 
encircled  by  a  close  carpet  of  moss  turf,  and  the  tUhris  of  leaves.  The 
eye  sees  these  minor  beauties  in  series  and  succession  ;  but  no  mere 
catalogue  can  convey  an  adequate  idea  of  the  delight  and  satisfaction 
afforded  to  the  mind  by  this  prodigal  abundance  of  natural  ornament. 

The  cries  of  the  woodland  birds,  which  hitherto  had  hardly  broken  the 
silence  of  the  forest,  showed  that  the  attractions  of  cover,  food,  and  water 
must  be  combined  in  a  measure  not  yet  encountered  in  the  adjacent 
glades.  The  bright  sun  poured  between  the  green  leaves  and  reached  the 
dark  hollows  among  the  pines  below,  and  the  wood  rang  with  the  cries  of 
the  larger  and  rarer  birds  which  have  here  their  haunt.     The  hooting  and 


THE    NEW  FOREST 


19 


yelping  of  the  owls,  though  it  was  noon-day,  was  almost  like  the  inter- 
mittent cry  of  hounds  that  have  strayed  from  the  pack,  and  are  hunting 
some  solitary  deer.  The  laughing  of  the  woodpecker,  the  harsh  and 
angry  screams  of  the  jays,  the  crow  of  the  cock  pheasant,  and  the  cuckoo's 
call,  showed  that  animal  life,  hitherto  so  scarce  in  this  wealth  of  arboreal 
growth  was  here  abundant  and  in  evidence.  The  only  trace  of  man's 
presence  was  the  rudest  and  most  primitive  dwelling  known  to  civilized 


Charcoal  Burner's   Hut,  Bolderzvood. 


life.  In  the  centre  of  a  clearing,  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  a  towering 
ring  of  monster  beeches,  was  a  deserted  charcoal  burner's  hut,  with  the 
"burning  circle"  in  front  of  the  door.  Except  for  the  setting  of  good 
English  trees  it  might  pass  for  part  of  the  kraal  of  some  race  of  wood- 
land dwarfs,  with  its  "  zeriba  "  in  front.  The  last  is  a  large  circle  of 
brushwood,  supported  by  posts  and  rails  of  rough  oak-poles.  Within 
was  a  flooring  of  black  ashes,  neatly  raked  into  a  raised  ring  at  a  few  feet 
from  the  circumference. 

B    2 


20  THE    NEW  FOREST 

The  hut  looks  like  a  white  ants'  hill  covered  with  scales  of  turf 
turned  grass  inwards,  with  a  kind  of  mushroom  cup  on  the  apex.  The 
only  sign  that  the  dwelling  was  not  constructed  by  savages  is  the  square 
door  and  porch,  hewn  of  roughly  squared  oak.  A  glimpse  of  the  interior 
shows  that  the  framework  is  a  cope  of  strong  oak  poles,  and  the  only 
furniture  a  couple  of  sacks  of  dry  beech  leaves,  a  low  wooden  bench,  and 
one  or  two  iron  pots.  A  similar  hut  in  Gritnam  wood  is  inhabited 
throughout  the  year  by  an  adder-hunter.  He  does  not  even  indulge  in 
the  luxury  of  a  beech  leaf  mattress  or  a  wooden  door  ;  but  lives  in  health 
and  comfort  with  a  low  oak  bench  for  his  bed,  and  a  faggot  of  heather 
for  curtain  and  door. 

A  narrow  glen  and  stream,  with  an  ascent  bare  of  trees  forms  a  kind 
of  precinct,  before  the  last  and  inmost  circle  of  the  wood,  where  the 
neophyte  may  pause,  and  see  revealed  before  him,  the  final  and  crowning 
secret  of  the  forest.  The  voices  of  Dodona's  doves  echo  softly  throbbing 
from  the  grove,  and  invite  him  "  to  touch,  to  see,  to  enter  "  and  be  from 
henceforth  one  of  the  initiated.  On  either  side  the  enormous  beeches  rise, 
some  tossing  their  branches  like  the  arms  of  Blake's  angels,  sweeping  sky- 
ward with  uplifted  hands,  others  with  huge  limbs  flung  supine  on  the 
turf,  others  like  slender  pillars  from  which  spring  fretted  vaults  and 
arches,  trees  male  and  female,  trees  of  architecture,  and  trees  of  life,  rising 
in  measured  order  and  gradual  succession  on  the  sides  of  a  theatre  of 
woodland  turf.  Where  the  solemn  aisles  diverge  they  are  walled  with 
holly,  roofed  with  the  green  of  the  beech,  and  floored  with  flesh  colour 
and  gold,  as  the  broken  lights  glitter  on  the  carpet  of  moss  and  wind- 
sown  leaves.  Half  of  a  clustered  beech  had  fallen  in  one  shock  to  the 
ground,  smashing  into  ruin  the  tall  hollies  below  it,  and  scattering  their 
broken  limbs  m  a  yet  wider  circle  of  destruction.  The  scent  of  beech 
and  holly  from  the  crushed  and  broken  fragments  overpowered  all  the 
odours  of  the  forest.  Deer  had  been  browsing  on  the  fallen  boughs,  and 
three  fallow  bucks  sprang  up  from  behind  the  ruin  and  rushed  through 
the  hollies  beyond.  Nine  fallen  limbs,  each  a  tree  itself  in  size  and 
proportions,  lay  spread  upon  the  ground  like  the  fingers  of  a  fan.  The 
coating  of  moss  with  which  it  was  completely  covered  made  it  easy  to 
walk  up  over  the  limbs  to  the  point  of  fracture  and  thence  look  down 
into  the  forest.   In  front  lay  beds  of  young  holly  glittering  in  the  sun,  the 


THE    NEW  FOREST  21 

ground  between  them  covered  with  the  vivid  green  of  wood-sorrel. 
Beyond,  and  around,  on  every  side  the  towering  forms  of  the  gigantic 
tree?  stand  clear,  each  behind  each  in  ordered  ranks  without  movement 
or  sound  in  the  still  air,  except  for  the  cooing  of  the  ring-doves  and  the 
screams  of  the  wood-owls  moving  in  the  forest.  It  is  a  temple  without 
walls,  with  a  thousand  pillars  and  a  thousand  gates,  aisles  innumerable 
and  arches  multiplex,  so  lofty,  so  light,  so  ancient  and  so  fair  that  it  seems 
the  work  not  of  natural  growth  but  of  some  enchantment,  which  has 
raised  it  in  the  forest  far  from  the  home  of  man,  unpeopled,  untrodden 
and  alone. 

Such  is  the  ancient  wood  of  Mark  Ash,  in  itself,  its  setting  and 
surroundings.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  elsewhere  in  England  is  to  be 
found  another  to  excel  it  or  equal  it  in  the  completeness  of  its  beauty, 
and  in  the  strange  perfection  of  the  growth,  not  only  of  its  trees,  but  of 
its  turf,  its  flowers  and  its  lawns,  to  which  the  will  of  man  has  not 
contributed  the  laying  of  a  sod  or  the  setting  of  a  daisy. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE     CENTRAL     FOREST    {continued) 

The  forest  heaths — Beaulieu  a?id  Ober  Heath  contrasted — Fleming's  th:orns — Matiey  Heath 
and  Bog  —Flight  of  the  woodcocks  at  dusk  up  Matley  Passage — •  Denn"^  Bog  by  tzcilight — 
Alum  Green  and  the  Roman  Arch — The  Knightwood  oak — Heronry  in  Finney  Ridge — 
Toung  herons  ;   buzzards  ;  the  adder-hunter- — Brockenhurst — Night  in  the  forest. 

The  sense  of  freedom  and  limitless  distance  which  always  accompanies 
a   forest   walk   is  never  more  complete  than   when  the  traveller  emerges 
from  roaming  in  the  great  woods  or  thick   plantations  and  finds  himself 
on  one  of  the  wide  heaths  which  stretch  for  miles  beside  the  woodlands, 
and  are  themselves  surrounded   by  distant   lines  of  forest    beyond  which 
lie  heaths,  and  yet  more  forest  far  away  down  to  the  shores  of  the  Solent. 
Beaulieu   Heath   is   perhaps   the   finest   of    the   open   stretches  of    forest 
scenery.     There  is  something  so  new,  fresh  and  exhilarating  in  the  sudden 
presentation    of    this   apparently   unlimited   stretch    of    high   open   level 
ground,  swept  by  the  volume  of  the  over-sea  wind  that  comes  rolling  up 
from  the  Channel,  which  reacts  on  the  mind  with  a   kind  of  intoxication 
of  space  and  air.   Miles  of  whispering  pines  are  the  background  to  the  heath : 
beyond  all  is  open,  level  and  free,  the  ground  falling  imperceptibly  till  the 
near  horizon  is  nothing  but  a  level  line  of  heather,  below  which  the  inter- 
secting waters  of  the  Solent  are  lost  to  sight,  though  the  blue  hills  of  the 
Isle  of  Wight  rise   like  the  background  of  a   panorama,  far  beyond  the 
invisible  strait  which  lies  between.      There  are  those  who  prefer  the  forest 
heaths  even  to  the  forest   woods.      Doubtless  each  gains  by  contrast,  the 
more  so  that  the  change  from  the  high  woods  to  the  sweeping  moorland, 
is  often  as  sudden  as  the  shifting  of  a  scene  upon  the  stage. 

Take  for  instance  the  wide  stretch  of  Ober  Heath,  which  fringes  the 


SOT  ,i»>.|  .("PiV- 


THE    NEW  FOREST  23 

great  plantations  of  Rhinefield  Walk,  and  runs  almost  down  to 
Brockenhurst  from  the  modern  castle  which  has  been  built  upon  the  site 
of  the  keeper's  lodge  at  Rhinefield.  The  upper  portion  of  the  heath  is 
like  a  scene  in  the  Surrey  pine  districts,  studded  with  self-sown  Scotch 
fir,  and  clothed  with  gorse  bushes,  rough  heather,  and  a  tiny  dwarf 
willow,  which  creeps  upon  the  ground  like  ivy,  but  otherwise  is  a  perfect 
willow  bush,  studded  in  spring  with  tiny  satin  globes,  like  the  "  palms  "  of 
the  common  osier,  but  no  larger  than  shot  or  tare-seed.  Far  away  across 
the  dark  purple  heather  and  golden  gorse,  the  quick  stream  of  Ober-water 
runs  through  a  flat  green  lawn  to  join  the  Brockenhurst  river  just  above 
New  Park,  with  the  hill  of  Brockenhurst  Manor  breaking  the  sky-line 
to  the  right.  The  left  side  of  the  heath  is  fringed  by  heavy  forest  ;  but 
in  this  case  the  transition  from  heath  to  wood  is  broken  by  a  wide  scrub 
of  dwarf  thorns,  round  as  beehives,  matted  with  heather,  and  knots 
and  beards  of  lichen.  Some  hundred  acres  must  be  covered  by 
"  Fleming's  thorns,"  as  this  dense  thicket  is  called.  Those  who  have 
seen  both,  compare  it  to  the  mimosa  scrub  of  the  African  plains. 
Like  the  mimosa  it  is  a  favourite  haunt  of  game  ;  and  the  wild  deer 
love  to   lie  in  its  secluded  and  impenetrable  jungle. 

No  fence  or  boundary  marks  the  transition  from  heath  to  forest. 
The  river  slips  from  the  common,  between  clumps  of  holly  and  single 
waving  birches,  winds  down  a  glade,  and  in  a  few  yards  is  lost  to  sight 
among  masses  of  oak,  alder,  ash,  and  pines.  Looking  backwards  towards 
the  sunset  along  this  borderland,  the  rugged  outlines  of  the  gorse  and  fir, 
and  the  broken  and  wind-swept  hollies  and  thorns  which  fringe  the  full 
fed  forest,  give  to  the  scene  an  air  of  wildness  and  confusion  in  striking 
contrast  to  the  serene  tranquillity  which  reigns  within  the  solemn  precints 
of  the  woods.  Ober  Heath  is  an  example  of  the  forest  moor  inclosed  by 
wooded  hills.  On  Matley  Heath,  south  of  Lyndhurst,  the  converse  may 
be  seen  ;  a  barren  heather-clad  hill  rising  steadily  from  low  wooded  ground 
on  either  side,  and  then  descending  in  a  long  and  gentle  slope  to  an  immense 
expanse  of  flat  and  barren  moor.  This  wild  and  desolate  tract  is  perhaps 
the  largest  unbroken  stretch  of  heather  and  infertility  in  the  whole  forest. 
Under  the  names  of  Matley  Heath,  Black  Down,  Yew-tree  Heath,  and 
Denny  Bog,  it  stretches  east  of  Lyndhurst  in  a  straight  line  of  five  miles 
to  the  Beaulieu  river.      Cobbett,  who  rode  across  it  after  having  missed 


24  THE    NEW  FOREST 

his  way,  and  hated  heaths  because  they  would  not  grow  his  pet  swede 
turnips,  calls  it  "  about  six  miles  of  heath  even  worse  than  Bagshot 
Heath  ;  as  barren  as  it  is  possible  for  land  to  be."  From  Lyndhurst  the 
road  gradually  ascends,  the  soil  all  the  way  growing  thinner  and  poorer, 
until  the  bare  gravel  shows  in  white  patches  and  plains  among  the  starved 
heather.  Yet  on  the  right,  and  at  no  great  distance  are  thick  woods  of 
the  finest  timber  in  England,  and  even  on  the  crest  of  the  hill,  a  fine 
rounded  wood  of  beech  and  oak,  Matley  Wood,  stands  up  like  a  fertile 
island,  with  a  sea  of  heather  and  bog  round  it.  To  the  left  lies  the  great 
stretch  of  Matley  Bog,  and  to  the  right  a  narrow  strip  of  hard  sand  where 
the  road  creeps  round  the  head  of  the  morass.  Here  is  a  picture  which, 
but  for  the  road  and  bridge  cannot  have  changed  for  a  thousand  years. 
A  stream  flows  down  from  a  wide  valley  in  the  thick  woods,  and  spreads 
itself  among  green  marshes,  sedge,  and  alder  copses,  at  the  top  of  the  bog, 
whose  level  and  impassable  plain  loses  itself  in  the  black  heath  which 
stretches  far  beyond  the  railway  into  the  southern  forest.  At  dusk, 
the  woodcocks,  which  rest  in  the  forest,  come  flying  up  from  the  bog  to 
the  woods.  On  the  last  day  of  April  of  the  present  year,  at  a  quarter 
before  eight,  the  woodcocks  were  already  on  the  wing.  Night  was  set- 
tling down  on  the  heath,  but  the  horizon  was  still  light  above  the  hill, 
and  tall  clouds  were  passing  across  the  west.  A  sound  came  from 
the  bog,  like  the  twittering  of  swallows  on  the  wing,  mixed  with  low 
croaking  cries.  Then  a  bird  with  steady  flight  like  that  of  a  curlew 
on  the  mud-flats  came  up  out  of  the  dusk,  and  crossed  the  road,  uttering 
its  curious  call  at  regular  intervals,  and  making  straight  for  the  head  of 
the  woodland  glen.  This  was  followed  by  a  pair,  which,  after  crossing 
the  road  flew  tilting  at  one  another,  and  turning  and  twisting  in  the  air 
all  round  the  semi-circle  of  lofty  trees  which  crown  the  hollow  in  the 
woods.  Bird  after  bird  then  flew  up  from  the  bog,  until  the  forest  glen 
was  full  of  their  dusky  forms  twisting  and  twining,  like  swallows  or  fern 
owls,  against  the  evening  sky. 

Next  day  a  young  woodcock  was  brought  into  Lyndhurst  ;  it  had 
been  caught  in  the  wood  close  to  the  Lyndhurst  race-course,  the  rest 
of  the  brood  were  seen  hiding  close  by,  with  their  heads  laid  upon  the 
ground  and  bodies  motionless  like  young  plover,  while  the  parent 
bird    flew   round,  and  endeavoured  to  decoy  the  lad    who    found  them 


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26  "THE    NEW  FOREST 

from  the  spot.  This  young  bird  was  a  most  beautiful  creature,  no 
longer  covered  with  down,  but  fully  fledged  to  all  ^appearance,  and 
adorned  with  the  beautiful  brown  mottling  which  makes  the  wood- 
cock's plumage  one  of  the  most  perfect  pieces  of  tone-ornament  in 
nature.  As  the  night  creeps  on,  blurring  every  minor  feature  of  the 
scene,  and  leaving  only  the  faint  gleam  of  waters  and  the  black  forms  of 
the  alder  clumps  from  distance  to  distance  in  the  bog,  the  cry  of  the 
wild-fowl,  echoed  by  the  dark  wall  of  forest  at  the  back,  shows  that 
all  the  natives  of  the  marsh  are  awake  and  moving.  The  croak  of  the 
woodcocks,  the  calling  and  screaming  of  the  plovers,  the  bleating  of  the 
snipe,  and  the  harsh  barking  of  the  herons,  winging  their  way  from 
Vinney  Ridge  to  the  Beaulieu  river,  fill  the  air  with  sound,  though  the 
creatures  themselves  are  invisible;  while  from  the  forest  the  yelping  and 
screeching  of  the  owls,  the  incessant  drone  of  the  "  churr  worms,"  and  the 
whirr  of  the  great  wood-beetles,  answers  the  calls  from  the  open  moor. 
At  such  times  the  stranger  will  do  well  to  seek  the  road  and  return 
across  the  heath  ;  for  once  entangled  in  the  great  woods  which  lie 
southward  of  the  marsh,  he  may  well  be  lost  till  morning.  In  the  angle 
between  this  mass  of  forest  and  the  railway,  lies  Denny  Bog,  a  more 
distant  and  even  more  picturesque  portion  of  this  irreclaimable  waste. 
The  words  bog,  marsh  and  swamp  are  often  used  indifferently.  Properly 
understood  they  apply  to  widely  difl^erent  conditions. 

A  bog  is  a  portion  of  ground  lying  in  soak.  In  the  forest  they  are 
found  of  all  sizes,  from  the  area  of  a  dining-room  table  to  that  of  Hyde 
Park.  The  rim  of  the  bog  is  hard  enough  to  prevent  the  escape  of 
the  water  except  by  gradual  soakage,  and  thus  the  service  is  level.  Yet 
the  beauty  of  the  bogs  is  known  and  appreciated  by  every  "  forester," 
though  they  are  a  fruitful  source  of  disaster  to  riders  who  do  not 
know  how  they  often  lurk  under  the  very  shadow  of  the  timber  at 
the  edge  of  the  sound  land  of  the  woods.  There  is  a  tiny  bog  on  the 
edge  of  Gritnam  Wood  which  may  serve  as  an  example.  On  the  verge 
of  the  common  which  lies  below  the  wood  is  a  pretty  little  circle  of 
golden  moss,  with  patches  of  green  grass,  and  pools  of  black  water  no 
larger  than  a  man's  hand.  Towards  the  centre  the  colouring  is  as  bril- 
liant as  that  of  sea- weeds  and  sea-anemones  seen  in  sunlit  water.  The 
mosses  grow  into  spongv  pillows,  with  exquisite  feathery  fronds.      Some 


THE    NEW  FOREST  27 

of  this  moss  is  rose-pink  ;  other  kinds  brilliant  green,  or  tawny  brown, 
and  from  the  whole  comes  a  scent  like  that  of  fern  roots.  A  man  may 
walk  across  in  safety,  but  a  horse  breaks  through  the  spongy  surface,  and 
nearly  always  falls,  throwing  its  rider  in  the  process,  for  the  sucking 
mosses  prevent  any  effort  at  recovering  its  footing  after  the  first  stumble. 

Herons,  like  the  monks  of  old,  seem  always  to  choose  a  picturesque 
site  for  their  home.  Their  home  in  the  wooded  hills  of  Wytham,  look- 
ing far  far  across  the  flats  of  the  upper  Thames  valley,  or  in  the  tall 
pines  of  Woolmer  Forest,  near  the  Deer's  Hut  common,  in  the  steep 
cliffs  of  the  Findhorn  river,  and  last,  but  not  least  beautiful,  the  heronry 
in  the  thick  plantation  at  the  head  of  the  Penn  Ponds  in  Richmond  Park, 
where  the  London  herons  build  almost  unknown  to  the  thousands  of 
visitors  who  skate  upon  the  lakes  in  winter,  or  ride  and  drive  past  them 
in  summer,  are  each  the  chosen  spots  in  their  own  beautiful  vicinity. 
The  heronry  on  Vinney  Ridge,  about  four  miles  from  Lyndhurst,  is  no 
exception  to  the  rule,  and  the  path  to  it  leads  through  some  of  the 
finest  woodland  scenery.  Part  lies  along  an  ancient  Roman  road, 
which  runs  over  the  summit   of  Lyndhurst  Hill. 

From  this  the  view  ranges  far  to  south,  west,  and  east,  while  at  its 
foot  lies  Alum  Green,  perhaps  the  largest  and  most  beautiful  of  all  the 
forest  lawns.  It  is  a  kind  of  natural  "  savannah  "  in  the  woods.  The 
extent  of  sound  turf  covers  many  acres,  dotted  with  park-like  groups  of 
trees,  surrounded  on  all  sides  with  a  ring  of  ancient  timber  on  sloping 
banks.  It  is  the  favourite  resort  of  all  the  ponies  and  cattle  in  this 
part  of  the  Forest.  The  ancient  path  joins  the  main  road  to  Christchurch, 
near  the  Lymington  stream,  about  a  mile  below  the  bridge  which  crosses 
it  on  the  way  to  Mark  Ash.  Here  also  is  a  bridge,  of  a  single  arch  of 
brick.  The  stream  comes  hurrying  down  to  this  through  the  open 
forest.  Three  tributaries  have  already  swelled  its  waters  between  this 
and  the  upper  crossing-place,  and  river  and  banks  alike  are  deeper  and 
even  lovelier  than  before.  The  broken  banks  are  planted,  wreathed,  and 
fringed  by  every  kind  of  forest  flower,  shrub,  and  fern,  of  the  largest 
and  most  luxuriant  growth.  Anemones,  cuckoo-flowers,  violets,  king- 
cups, young  bracken,  and  hard-fern,  woodbine  and  wild  rose,  heart's- 
tongue,  and  moss  like  lengths  of  velvet  cover  the  banks,  the  beech- 
boughs  arch  the  stream,  and  on  each  side  the  open  wood  extends  to  the 


28  rHE    NEW  FOREST 

utmost  limit  of  sight.  The  otters  make  this  part  of  the  river  their 
summer  home.  Two  young  ones  were  recently  dug  out  from  the  earth 
a  short  way  below  the  "  Gate  House,"  which  stands  near  the  bridge,  and 
during  the  day  they  frequently  lie  up,  either  in  the  dry  forest  near,  or 
under  the  roots  of  a  big  tree  by  the  banks.  The  habits  of  the  New 
Forest  otters  on  this  stream  seem  very  well  known  to  those  who  are 
interested  either  in  hunting  or  observing  them.  They  travel  a  long  way 
down  the  river  at  night,  perhaps  past  Brockenhurst  and  as  far  as 
Boldre,  or  even  below  to  near  Lymington.  They  then  hunt  the  stream 
upwards  in  the  early  morning  until  they  reach  the  narrow  waters,  where 
they  stay  during  the  day.  The  pack  of  otter-hounds,  which  generally 
visits  the  forest  in  the  early  summer,  usually  meet  at  Brockenhurst  or 
some  other  point  down  stream  and  pick  up  the  fresh  "  drag  "  of  the 
otters,  which  have  returned  up  stream  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning. 
Hunted  deer  also  make  for  the  water  at  this  point,  and  endeavour  to 
throw  off  the  pack  before  seeking  refuge  in  the  thick  recesses  of  Knight- 
wood  and  Vinney  Ridge.  A  fallow  buck  finds  the  dimensions  of  the 
stream  quite  adequate  for  the  temporary  destruction  of  scent.  Slipping 
down  some  tributary  brooklet  it  will  pick  its  way  down  to  a  pool,  and 
then,  gently  sinking,  until  nothing  but  head  and  horns  remain  above 
water,  lies  as  motionless  as  a  squatted  hare  listening  to  the  shouts,  talk- 
ing, casting,  and  excitement  on  either  bank,  until  refreshed  and  invigor- 
ated it  springs  once  more  to  the  bank  and  leads  its  pursuers  another 
circle  through  the  woods  and  bogs  of  the  forest. 

North  of  the  road,  a  little  beyond  the  "  Roman  Arch,"  as  tradition 
calls  this  bridge,  is  the  inclosure  of  Knight  wood.  This  large  wood, 
though  in  part  replanted  in  1867,  contains  many  remnants  of  ancient 
forest  embedded  in  the  new  timber,  among  other  the  celebrated  Knight- 
wood  Oak.  Thus  it  shows  in  juxtaposition  both  the  artificial  and 
natural  modes  of  reproducing  forest.  On  the  edges  of  the  wood  are 
close  plantations  of  Scotch  fir,  in  formal  rows,  which  shelter  and  direct 
the  upward  growth  of  the  young  oaks  between.  In  the  centre,  where 
old  trees  have  died  and  been  removed,  or  have  in  past  time  cleared  a 
space  which  their  present  height  leaves  free  to  light  and  air,  young  oaks, 
birches,  and  beeches  are  growing  in  irregular  masses  and  of  all  heights 
and  sizes.     Among  this  confused  multitude  is  the  great  Knightwood  Oak 


K?iightzvood    Oak,    Mark    Ash. 


30  THE    NEW  FOREST 

This  forest  king  stands  in  a  smooth  round  lawn,  all  other  trees  keep- 
ing their  distance  beyond  the  outermost  circle  of  its  branches.  The 
main  trunk  of  the  oak  rises  like  a  smooth  round  Norman  pillar,  and  at 
no  great  height  breaks  into  eight  limbs  which  radiate  from  it  like  the 
sticks  of  a  fan,  in  very  straight  and  regular  lines.  The  extremities  of 
these  show  signs  of  decay,  but  the  tree  seems  as  firm  as  ever.  Its  rigidity 
is  such  that  in  a  heavy  gale,  though  the  tops  of  the  branches  move,  the 
mass  of  the  tree  seems  as  stiff  as  if  cast  in  iron.  The  limbs,  though 
untouched  by  decay,  are  coated  nearly  to  the  summit  by  thick  green 
moss,  and  the  effect  of  this  symmetrical  mass  of  timber  springing  from  a 
trunk  of  such  magnitude — its  girth  is  19^  feet — is  beyond  description 
dignified  and  imposing.  The  tallest  beeches  in  the  forest  are  probably 
those  in  which  the  herons  build  in  the  Vinney  Ridge  inclosure,  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  Christ  Church  Road  from  Knightwood.  The  wood 
lies  on  the  top  of  a  fine  saddle-back  hill,  covered  with  trees  of  every 
kind,  except  elm,  and  of  all  ages,  from  old  ivy-bound  oaks  to  immense 
beeches  and  thorn-bushes  wreathed  with  woodbine.  There  is  a  far 
greater  extent  of  open  turf  here  than  in  most  "  inclosures,"  and  when 
the  fences  are  removed  in  1899,  which  is  the  date  fixed  for  its 
disenclosure,  it  will  take  its  place  as  a  natural  part  of  the  ancient 
forest. 

The  beeches  in  which  the  herons  build  are  so  lofty  as  to  lift  their 
summits  above  the  natural  angle  of  sight,  even  as  the  head  is 
usually  carried  in  the  forest  ;  if  it  were  not  for  the  glimpses  of  the 
great  birds  silently  launching  themselves  from  the  tree-tops  before 
their  disturber  has  approached  the  nest,  the  existence  of  the  colony  would 
not  be  suspected.  It  was  the  flight  of  a  single  heron  slipping  noiselessly 
from  the  nest,  and  soaring  back  in  a  wide  circle  to  watch  over  the  brood, 
that  first  indicated  to  the  present  writer  that  he  was  in  the  heronry. 
Even  then  the  height  of  the  trees,  their  distance  apart,  and  the  thickness 
of  the  foliage  at  the  top  made  the  discovery  of  the  nest  no  easy  task, 
had  not  the  clattering  noise  made  by  the  young  indicated  their  where- 
abouts. The  presence  of  birds  of  prey,  though  usually  screened  from 
sight  by  the  thickness  of  the  forest,  was  well  illustrated  by  an  incident 
which  took  place  after  the  momentary  flight  of  the  old  herons.  A 
sparrow-hawk  dashed  up  through  the  wood,  and  poising  itself  above  the 


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32  rHE    NEW  FOREST 

trees,  flew  from  nest  to  nest,  looking  down  into  them  from  a  height  of  a 
few  feet,  and  apparently  expecting  to  find  a  brood  small  enough  for  one 
to  be  carried  off  before  the  old  birds  returned.  The  hawk's  visit  only 
lasted  for  a  minute,  for  at  that  moment  five  old  herons  came  sweeping 
over  the  wood,  and  remained  soaring  in  hurried  and  anxious  flight  far 
above  the  tops  of  the  loftiest  trees.  When  we  retired  to  some  distance 
and  stood  still  by  a  timber  stack,  bird  after  bird  pitched  on  the  trees,  and 
after  one  or  two  subdued  croaks  of  greeting,  flapped  down  into  the  nest. 
The  eyries  appear  absolutely  inaccessible,  built,  as  they  are,  at  heights  of 
from  seventy  to  ninety  feet  from  the  ground  on  trees  which  rise  two- 
thirds  of  that  height  without  a  single  branch.  Yet  they  are  climbed, 
otherwise  the  inquiry  as  to  whether  you  "  could  do  with  some  young 
herons  " — or  young  "  cranes,"  for  both  names  are  used  in  the  forest — 
would  not  be  addressed  to  those  who  are  known  to  have  a  taste  for 
keeping  odd  pets  so   often   as   it  is. 

There  are  a  few  ancient  inhabitants  who  still  know  the  favourite 
nesting  places,  not  only  of  the  herons,  but  of  rarer  birds,  such  as 
the  common  and  honey-buzzard.  The  forest  is  said  to  be  the  last 
breeding  place  of  the  honey-buzzard  left  in  England,  and  there  is  no 
reason,  in  the  present  condition  of  the  woodlands,  why  either  of  these 
birds  should  forsake  the  district,  except  in  the  prices  offered  for  their 
eggs  by  "oologists."  The  keepers  protect  a  nest  when  found,  and  as  the 
honey-buzzard  does  not  lay  till  summer  is  well  advanced,  there  is  more 
chance  of  its  nest  escaping  observation  than  for  those  of  the  early- 
building  birds. 

The  strangest  survival  of  any  industry  connected  with  the  taking  of 
wild  animals  in  the  forest  is  that  of  the  "  Adder-hunter,"  probably  the 
very  last  representative  in  England  of  a  race  who  for  upwards  of  two 
centuries  have  contributed  their  strange  nostrum  of  adder's  fat  to  the 
pharmacopoeias  of  central  and  western  Europe.  The  last  of  the  Adder- 
hunters  is  a  strikingly  handsome  man,  probably  past  his  sixtieth  year,  short, 
with  curling  beard  and  hair,  and  equipped  in  what  is  probably  a  unique 
costume  for  his  peculiar  trade.  Thick  boots  and  gaiters  protect  him 
from  the  chance  of  a  bite  from  the  snakes.  He  is  slung  all  over  with 
bags  of  sacking,  his  pockets  are  stuffed  with  tins  and  boxes,  and  from  his 
chest  hangs  a  pair  of  long  steel  forceps.      In  his  hand  he  carries  a  light 


rHE    NEW  FOREST 


zz 


stick  with  a  ferrule,  into  which  when  he   rouses  a  snake  he  puts  in  a 
short  forked  piece  of  hazel  wood,  and,  darting  it  forward  with  unerring 


The   Adder-Catcker. 


aim,  pins  the  adder  to  the  ground.  Stooping  down  he  picks  it  up  lightly 
with  the  forceps,  and  after  holding  the  writhing  creature  up  for  a 
moment,  in  which  he  looks  like  a  rustic  ^sculapius,  he  transfers  it  to  his 

c 


34  I'HE    NEW  FOREST 

sack,  Mr.  Mills,  or  "  Brusher,"  as  he  is  known  among  his  friends,  is  a  well- 
known  and  popular  character  in  the  forest,  and  his  services  in  keeping 
down  the  number  of  adders  are  considerable.  From  March  to  September 
he  ranges  the  forest,  and  his  largest  "bag"  was  i6o  adders  in  a  month. 
These  he  boils  down,  and  prepares  from  their  flesh  the  "  adder's  fat," 
which  he  sells.  Its  virtues  have  been  known  for  so  many  centuries,  and 
the  favour  with  which  extremely  penetrating  unguents,  such  as  lanoline, 
made  from  the  fat  of  sheep's  wool,  are  now  regarded,  justifies  the  reputa- 
tion it  enjoys.  The  belief  that  it  is  a  remedy  for  the  bite  of  the  snake 
itself  may  rest  on  slender  grounds.  But  for  the  odd  list  of  accidents 
given  by  the  old  man — "  sprains,  black  eyes,  poisoning  with  brass,  bites 
by  rats  and  horses,  rheumatic  joints,  and  sore  feet  in  men  and  dogs,"  it 
is  admitted  by  the  general  consent  of  the  forest  to  be  a  sovereign  balm. 
In  winter  the  Adder-hunter's  occupation  is  gone,  but  he  has  other  modes 
of  making  a  livelihood,  and  his  lodging  throughout  the  year  is  in  the 
woods,  in  the  snug  interior  of  a  charcoal-burner's  hut. 

Brockenhurst,  unlike  Lyndhurst,  which,  with  all  its  picturesque 
features,  bears  itself  like  a  little  town,  is  a  true  village,  imbedded  in 
the  forest.  Here  the  ground  is  stiff  clayey  loam,  suitable  for  the 
growth  of  oaks,  and  consequently  for  corn  and  arable  land.  The 
square  fields,  with  hedgerows,  which  fringe  the  village  give  an  uneasy 
sense  of  limit  and  confinement  after  the  free  and  open  woodlands. 
But  the  cultivated  land  is  a  mere  patch,  lost  to  sight  and  memory 
in  a  few  minutes'  walk  from  the  village.  The  church  stands  apart 
on  a  little  hill,  a  perfect  forest  shrine,  ringed  by  a  double  circle  of 
oaks,  between  which  lie  the  graves,  sprinkled  with  primroses  that  have 
crept  out  from  the  wood,  and  spread  their  flowers  shyly  on  the  church- 
yard turf.  Like  the  new  church  of  Lyndhurst,  the  building  stands  upon 
a  green  mount,  A  giant  yew,  sound  and  vigorous,  with  a  solid  stem 
eighteen  feet  in  girth,  overshadows  the  red-brick  tower,  and  reaches 
halfway  up  the  spire.  In  front  of  this  tree  stand  the  dead  fragments 
of  an  oak.  The  age  of  this  ruin  of  a  tree  is  almost  beyond  conjecture, 
but  its  position  gives  some  clue  to  its  date.  Part  of  one  branch  survives. 
This  limb,  which  appears  to  be  some  six  feet  in  diameter,  must  have 
passed  across  the  space  on  which  the  greater  part  of  the  yew  now  stands, 
at  a  height  of  thirteen  feet  from  the  ground.      Thus  when  the  ancient 


::'i ' ' 


i  ;.i  ■' 


cq 


36 


THE    NEIV  FOREST 


yew  was  a  mere  shrub,  not  so  high  as  the  great  limb  of  the  oak,  the  latter 
must  have  attained  its  full  dimensions  ;  for  the  yew  is  a  tree  of  perfect 
growth,  straight,  upright,  and  unmarred  by  crowding  or  shade,  which 
must  have  been  the  case  had  it  grown  up  when  the  oak-bough  was  large 
enough  to  overshadow  it.    The  shell  of  the  oak  measures  twenty-five  feet 


\ 


Bridge  near   Brockenhnrst. 


round  ;   and  the  centuries  of  the  growth  of  the  yew  must  be  the  measure 
of  the  decline  and  fall  of  this  primeval  oak. 

At  dusk,  when  the  heavy  clouds  descend  and  brood  in  long  lines 
across  the  woods,  with  bars  of  pale  white  sky  below,  the  scene  between 
Brockenhurst  and  Lyndhurst  is  singularly  wild  and  pleasing.  The  white 
and  waning  light  in  the  west  is  broken  by  the  sharp  outlines  of  the 
rugged  firs,  and  reflected  in  pale  sheets  in  the  swampy  pools  which 
line  the  river.     The  woods  are   studded  with   clumps  of  holly,   whose 


THE   NEW  FOREST  37 

opaque  black  outline  contrasts  with  the  gnarled  and  twisted  limbs  of 
the  ancient  pollarded  oaks  native  to  this  stiff  and  vigorous  soil.  As 
the  dusk  creeps  on  the  night-sounds  of  the  forest  are  more  distinctly 
heard.  The  splashing  of  the  ponies'  feet  as  they  crop  the  grass  of  the 
swamps,  the  neighing  of  the  forest  mares  as  they  call  their  foals,  and  the 
distant  tinkle  of  the  cattle-bells,  sound  through  the  trees,  and  shadowy 
forms  of  deer  canter  across  the  rides.  Voices  of  children,  calling  or 
crying  in  the  deep  wood,  are  among  the  startling  and  unexpected  sounds 
of  night  in  the  forest.  More  than  once  the  writer  has  left  the  track  and 
hastened  into  the  grove,  only  to  see  the  fire  of  a  gipsy  camp,  with 
the  children  and  parents  lying  at  the  mouth  of  their  tent,  lighted  and 
warmed  by  the  glow  of  their  beech-wood  fire.  The  smell  of  the  woods 
on  a  still  night,  when  dew  is  falling,  is  the  essence  of  a  thousand  years 
distilling  in  the  soil  of  this  virgin  forest.  It  baffles  description  ;  suffice 
it  to  say,  as  Herodotus  did  of  Arabia  Felix,  "  from  this  country  comes 
an  odour,  wondrous  sweet."  Nor  are  true  perfumes  wanting,  where 
wafts  of  the  scent  of  sweetbriar  come  across  the  path,  or  an  unseen  bed 
of  hyacinths  fringes  the  road. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE    WILD     DEER    AND     FOREST     PONIES 

Unique  character  of  hujit'mg  i?i  the  '■'■High  Woods'''' — Survival  of  the  zvild  deer — A  spring 
meet  at  New  Parlc — Rousing  deer  zvith  tufters — Old  Moonstone — Laying  on  the 
pack — Full  cry  in  the  forest — Number  of  deer  killed — -The  forest  ponies — Their 
importance  to  the  Commoners — Arab  blood — Their  feral  habits — Improvefnent  and 
fnaintenance  of  the   breed —  The  Pony    Shozv  at  Lyndhurst. 

The  forest  was  created  as  a  hunting-ground,  and  such  it  still 
remains.  The  fox  is  regularly  hunted,  and  the  otter-hounds  visit 
Brockenhurst  in  spring.  But  the  beasts  of  the  chase  peculiar  to  the 
district  are  the  wild  red  and  fallow  deer,  which  are  hunted  amid 
settings  and  surroundings  absolutely  unique  in  England. 

Their  continued  existence  is  one  instance  in  many  of  the  natural 
survival  of  what  is  appropriate  to  the  forest.  When  the  deer  were 
over-preserved  by  the  Crown,  their  presence  led  to  endless  ill-will  and 
demoralisation.  From  7,000  to  8,000  head  are  said  to  have  lived 
within  and  about  the  boundaries  of  the  forest  at  the  end  of  the  last 
century.  Such  a  stock  was  far  larger  than  the  natural  resources  of  the 
ground  could  maintain.  In  the  winter  they  were  partly  fed  by  hay 
grown  for  them  at  New  Park,  Even  so  they  frequently  starved  in 
hard  weather,  and  it  is  said  that  in  the  winter  of  1787  three  hundred 
were  found  dead  in  one  walk.  The  reaction  from  this  over-preservation 
went  almost  as  far  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  "  Deer  Removal  Act " 
M'as  passed  in  1851.  The  greater  number  were  taken  in  the  "toils" 
— high  nets  still  kept  in  most  deer  parks — and  most  of  the  rest  were 
shot  down  by  sportsmen.     But  they  have  survived   all  efforts  at   their 


THE    NEW  FOREST  39 

destruction,  and  their  increase  in  the  thick  and  quiet  plantations  is  now 
steadily  maintained. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  season,  late  in  April,  a  day  with  the  New 
Forest  deerhounds  presents  from  meet  to  finish  a  series  of  pictures  of 
sylvan  sport,  in  the  full  glory  of  the  English  spring,  each  of  which  might 
be  illustrated  from  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  and  the  old  ballad  poetry  of 
England.  Take  for  example  the  scene  at  a  meet  late  in  April  of  the 
present  year,  under  the  tall  oaks  at  New  Park.  Three  men,  born  and 
bred  in  the  forest,  sons  of  woodmen,  dressed  in  brown  velveteen,  tlT,ick 
boots,  and  gaiters,  were  leaning  against  the  oaks.  Each  wore  across  his 
shoulders  long  thongs  of  leather,  with  loops  and  swivels  of  steel,  working 
examples  of  those  mysterious  ornaments  of  white  and  gold  with  which 
the  Master  of  the  Oueen's  Buckhounds  is  girded  as  he  leads  the  royal 
procession  on  the  Cup  day  at  Ascot.  These  are  the  "  couples,"  for 
holding  the  pack,  until  the  time  comes  to  lay  them  on  upon  the  scent  of 
the  deer,  which  the  "  tufters  "  have  driven  from  cover.  Three  or  four 
red-scarved,  black-muzzled  forest  gipsies  strolled  up  and  formed  a  group 
under  another  oak,  little  dark  active  laughing  orientals,  a  strange  contrast 
to  the  sturdy  foresters.  The  old  adder-catcher  next  joined  the  party  ;  he 
had  hunted  the  forest  as  he  came,  and  flung  down  upon  the  ground  from 
his  wallet  a  pair  of  writhing  snakes.  The  "  kennels  "  are  good  customers 
for  his  adder's  fat,  as  it  is  believed  not  only  to  be  useful  to  reduce  sprains 
and  injuries  in  horse  and  hound,  but  also  as  a  remedy  against  the  adder 
poison  should  a  hound  be  bitten  in  the  forest.  A  gipsy  family  followed, 
ragged,  unkempt,  "  happy  as  birds  and  hard  as  nails,"  as  a  forester  described 
them,  taking  the  meet  on  their  most  leisurely  way  to  Brockenhurst.  An 
old  woman,  the  present  patriarch  of  the  forest  gipsies,  led  the  way,  in  a 
cloak  of  enormous  squares  ot  scarlet  and  black,  which  covered  the  basket 
she  carried  like  a  tent,  and  a  poke-bonnet.  Another  younger  woman,  in 
a  true  "  witches'  hat  "  with  elf  locks  hanging  from  below,  and  a  tribe  of 
most  ragged  children,  sockless,  shoeless,  some  pushing  a  little  cart  in 
which  lay  their  tents,  others  straying  and  returning  like  little  wild 
animals,  were  amusing  themselves  by  imitating  a  pack  of  hounds  in  full 
cry.  Soon  the  pack  appeared,  with  huntsman  and  whips  in  coats  of 
Lincoln   green,  and  couples  across  their  breasts,  and  though  the  hounds 


40  THE    NEJV  FOREST 

are  no  longer  like  those  which  Theseus  bid  the  forester  "  uncouple  in  the 
western  valley," 

"  With  ears  that  sweep  away  the  morning  dew, 
Crook-kneed  and  dewlapped  like  Thcssalian   bulls 
Slow  in  pursuit," 

they  are  still  "  matched  in  mouth  like  bells,"  and  their  greater  speed  and 
symmetry  does  not  detract  from  the  pleasure  of  listening  in  the  forest  to 

"  The  musical  confusion 
Of  hounds  and   echo  in   conjunction," 

which  the  hero  proposed  to  Queen  Hippolyta.  A  sharp-faced  man 
*'  lunging  "  a  forest  pony,  and  one  or  two  mounted  woodmen  and  keepers, 
completed  the  party,  until  the  "  field  "  cast  up  rapidly,  the  master  in 
Lincoln  green,  the  rest  in  quiet  blacks  and  browns.  The  hounds  were 
then  divided  by  the  whips  into  groups,  and  the  couples  fastened,  each 
thong  being  linked  to  a  pair  of  hounds.  Thus  one  man  has  to  hold  from 
three  to  six  couple,  and  that  picturesque  poise  of  men  stepping  backwards 
with  arms  extended  and  dragging  reluctant  hounds  which  has  been 
painter's  and  sculptor's  subject  for  centuries  is  reproduced  in  perfection. 
One  ancient  and  sagacious  hound,  by  name  Moonstone,  was  omitted  from 
the  coupling  process.  Satisfied  that  for  it  the  honour  was  reserved  of 
finding  and  separating  the  deer,  it  trotted  alone  at  the  heels  of  the  hunts- 
man's horse,  with  an  air  of  sagacity  and  importance  most  edifying  to 
behold.  After  "  secret  consults  "  with  one  or  two  woodmen,  who  had 
marked  deers  in  the  early  morning,  the  huntsman  led  the  way  through 
thick  and  beautiful  plantations,  the  coupled  hounds  and  the  field  following 
in  long  procession.  On  every  side  the  wood  rang  with  the  spring  notes 
of  birds,  the  laugh  of  the  woodpecker,  the  cry  of  the  cuckoo,  while  starry 
beds  of  violet  and  primrose,  and  everywhere  the  sight  and  scent  of  leaves 
and  flowers,  made  an  unusual  and  beautiful  setting  to  the  animated 
groups  of  riders,  horses,  and  .'hounds. 

The  pack  and  field  halted  in  a  rough  common  deep  in  heather  and 
furze,  shut  in  on  three  sides  by  plantations,  and  on  the  fourth  by  the 
ancient  timber  of  Gritnam  wood.  The  huntsman  and  a  mounted 
keeper,   with  the   old   "  tufter "    Moonstone,  then    trotted    into   a   large 


THE    NEW  FOREST  41 

enclosure  on  the  farther  side.  "  Come  on,  old  dog  !  "  called  the  hunts- 
man, as  the  hound  stopped  to  feather  on  either  side  of  the  beautiful 
green  ride  up  which  the  two  men  were  trotting.  The  keeper  pulled  up 
his  cob,  and  pointed  to  a  clump  of  beeches  surrounded  by  low  brambles 
and  thorns,  remarking,  "There  were  three  bucks  there  this  morning." 
The  hound,  which  had  been  casting  from  side  to  side  of  the  walk  and 
through  the  cover,  now  bounded  towards  the  beeches,  and  with  a  crash 
three  bucks  sprang  to  their  feet,  and  rushed  through  the  wood,  followed 
by  the  loud  and  musical  baying  of  the  hound.  The  deer  did  not  break 
at  once,  and  there  was  time  to  join  the  groups  in  the  common  and  watch 
the  dispersion  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  plantation,  as  the  hound  twisted 
and  turned  after  the  bucks.  A  big  fox  stepped  out,  and  a  doe  crossed, 
eliciting  a  chorus  of  impatient  whimpers  from  the  pack  before  whose  eyes 
it  passed.  Then  the  three  bucks  crossed  the  open,  followed  by  the  single 
hound,  whose  deep  voice  was  heard  for  many  minutes  as  he  drove  them 
through  the  next  covert.  A  blast  on  the  horn  now  gave  the  signal  that 
the  deer  had  separated,  and  half  a  dozen  willing  hands  led  the  coupled 
hounds  to  the  ancient  wood  in  which  they  were  to  be  laid  upon  the  scent. 
The  long  line  of  men  and  hounds,  followed  by  the  well-mounted  field, 
hurried  along  through  the  long  narrow  glades  of  a  most  beautiful  and 
ancient  wood  of  oaks,  or  under  arcades  of  crab-blossoms,  ragged  gipsies, 
brown-coated  foresters,  hounds  and  riders,  all  gradually  hurrying  on  till 
the  whole  cavalcade  was  pushing  at  a  trot  through  the  forest.  A  pretty 
little  black-eyed  boy  was  leading  old  Moonstone  (literally  by  a  string). 
"  I  likes  deer-hunting,  though  'tis  a  cruel  sport,  for  the  deer  does  us  no 
harm,"  he  remarked  sententiously,  as  the  procession  grouped  itselt  round 
the  huntsman,  who  was  sitting  alert  and  eager  on  his  horse  in  a  green  ride 
at  the  highest  point  of  the  wood,  where  the  single  buck  had  crossed. 
All  the  hounds  were  now  eager  and  happy,  with  heads  up,  sterns  waving. 
In  a  few  moments  they  were  uncoupled,  and  dashed  down  through  the 
wood.  If  the  scene  was  not  a  reproduction  of  Tudor  or  Plantagenet 
days,  the  picture  of  the  early  poets  is  sadly  misread.  Hounds,  all  black, 
white,  and  tan,  spread  fanlike  across  the  forest,  flinging  to  right  and  left, 
each  giving  tongue  as  it  owned  the  scent  ;  master,  huntsman,  and  whips 
in  Lincoln  green,  under  the  lights  and  branching  canopy  of  most  ancient 
beeches  ;  well-mounted  and  well-dressed  riders,  in  the  costume,  sober  in 


42  THE    NEW  FOREST 

colours,  sound  in  texture,  which  good  taste  and  good  sense  have  elaborated 
into  the  perfection  of  simplicity,  now  seen,  now  lost,  as  they  gallop  down 
the  glades,  among  the  tall  gray  pillars  of  the  beech-trunks,  and  the  gossamer 
green  of  little  thorns,  and  bushes  of  ivy  and  wild  rose.  Surely  some 
such  scene  as  this  must  have  been  in  the  mind  of  the  author  of  the 
Allegro^  when   he   bids  the  reader 

"  At  his  window  bid  good  morrow, 
Through   the   sweetbriar,  or  the  vine, 
Or   the   twisted   eglantine. 

"  Oft  listening  how  the  hounds  and  horn 
Cheerly  rouse   the  slumbering  morn, 
From   the   side   of  some   hoar  hill. 
Through   the   high   wood   echoing  shrill." 

A  favourite  device  of  a  hunted  stag  in  the  New  Forest  is  to  make 
for  the  wood  in  which  other  deer  are  lying,  and  disturb  them,  carrying 
the  trail  right  over  their  "  forms."  The  difficulty  of  keeping  hounds 
together  when  so  composed  in  a  thick  extensive  plantation  is  very  great, 
and  it  often  happens  that,  while  the  main  body  of  the  pack  keep  to  the 
scent  of  the  hunted  deer,  small  parties  of  hounds,  or  even  a  single  hound, 
break  off  and  enjoy  a  hunt  on  their  own  account.  It  is  on  record  that  on 
one  occasion  the  pack  separated  into  three,  each  of  which  division  killed 
a  deer.  One  doe  was  hunted  and  killed  by  three  hounds  only,  who  were 
found  eating  the  carcass.  The  single  efforts  of  a  staghound  which  is 
driving  a  deer  are  often  extremely  interesting,  as  an  example  of  the  per- 
severance, skill,  and  instinct  combined  possessed  by  the  modern  breed.  On 
the  day  the  opening  of  which  has  been  described,  a  stray  hound  hunted  a 
buck  for  a  full  hour  without  driving  it  from  one  large  plantation,  giving 
tongue  at  intervals,  and  sticking  to  the  scent  without  the  encouragement 
either  of  its  own  companion  or  of  a  single  rider.  At  last,  a  fine  fallow 
buck,  which  had  not  yet  shed  its  horns,  broke  from  the  enclosure,  and 
cantered  lightly  across  the  open  common,  ringing  twice  or  thrice  round 
clumps  of  bushes,  and  lying  down  for  a  few  minutes  to  cool  itself,  though 
apparently  not  at  all  distressed,  in  a  boggy  pool.  It  then  leapt  a  fence 
into  a  plantation.  The  hound  then  made  its  exit  from  the  wood,  and 
took  up  the  scent  at  a  swinging  gallop,  giving  tongue  loudly  at  first,  but 


THE    NEW  FOREST  43 

soon  becoming  silent  as  it  reached  the  scene  of  the  buck's  circle  round 
the  bushes.  At  least  ten  minutes  were  required  to  unravel  these 
difficulties  ;  but  the  check  did  not  in  the  least  abate  the  keenness  of  the 
hound,  who  brought  the  line  up  to  the  wood,  and  then  with  a  fine  burst 
of  "  music  "  dashed  into  the  wood,  and  there  pursued  its  solitary  hunt. 

Stag-hunting  in  the  forest  begins  in  August,  and  the  meets  are  held 
through  September,  November,  December,  January,  March,  April,  and 
part  of  May,  thus  covering  a  considerable  period  when  fox-hunting  has 
either  ceased  or  not  begun.  Probably  the  late  spring  hunting  is  the  most 
novel  and  picturesque  experience  which  a  day  with  the  New  Forest  stag- 
hounds  affords.  But  to  those  who  enjoy  the  sight  of  hounds  working,  and 
at  the  same  time  have  a  taste  for  beautiful  scenery,  nothing  could  well  be 
more  delightful.  Last  season,  sixty  days'  sport  averaged  about  the  same 
number  of  deer  killed.  Blank  days  are  unknown,  and^  there  is  the 
certainty  of  a  run  and  of  a  day's  enjoyment. 

The  New  Forest  ponies  are  one  of  the  most  interesting  features  both 
of  the  landscape  and  the  life  of  this  wild  country.  Now  that  the  deer 
are  so  few  as  to  have  disappeared  from  common  view,  they  are  replaced 
on  the  heaths,  the  lawns,  the  bogs,  and  among  the  ancient  trees  by  the 
many-coloured,  wild-looking  forms  of  these  almost  feral  ponies.  There 
is  scarcely  any  portion  of  the  forest — the  inmost  recesses  of  Mark  Ash 
woods,  the  sea-girt  heaths  of  Beaulieu,  the  sodden  rim  of  Matley  Bog, 
or  the  smooth  lawns  of  Alum  Green,  of  Stonycross,  or  Brockenhurst — 
from  which  the  ponies  are  absent.  There  is  no  solitude  in  which  their 
quiet  movements,  as  they  tread  with  careful  steps  cropping  the  scanty 
herbage,  do  not  break  the  stillness  by  day  and  night,  no  bare  hillside  so 
barren  but  the  ponies  can  find  on  it  some  humble  plant  to  crop  between 
the  stones. 

The  brood  mares  of  the  forest  are  perhaps  the  nearest  approach  to 
the  wild  horse  now  existing  in  this  country,  so  far  as  their  life  and 
habits  entitle  them  to  the  name.  Many  of  these  have  run  for  twenty 
years  in  the  heaths  and  woods,  unbroken,  unshod,  and  almost  without 
experience  of  the  halter  except  when  "  pounded  "  by  the  "  agisters  "  for 
occasional  marking.  Their  graceful  walk  and  elegant  shape,  their 
sagacity  and  hardihood,  their  speed  and  endurance,  and,  not  least,  the 
independence  and  prosperity  which  their  possession  confers  on  the  com- 


44  "THE    NEW  forest: 

moners  and  borderers  who  live  in  and  around  the  forest,  give  to  these 
ponies  an  interest  apart  from  that  attached  to  the  life  of  any  other  breed 
of  domesticated  animal  in  this  country.  Nearly  all  the  work  done  else- 
where by  large  horses  seems  to  be  performed  in  and  around  the  forest 
by  these  miniature  ponies,  drawing  miniature  carts.  Singly,  or  driven 
tandem-fashion,  they  draw  bricks,  haul  loads  of  brushwood  and  poles, 
trot  almost  any  distance  to  markets  and  fairs  in  carts  and  gigs,  and  will 
carry  a  heavy  forester  safely  and  well 

"Over  hill,   over  dale. 
Through   bush,   through   briar," 

without  fatigue  or  stumble.  There  is  something  in  the  fact  of  owning 
horses — be  they  only  ponies — which  seems  to  raise  a  man  in  his  own 
esteem,  and  the  jolly  foresters  have  an  air  and  demeanour,  whether 
standing  in  front  of  their  mud-built  cottages,  or  riding  across  the  heaths 
to  drive  in  their  various  stock,  which  belongs  of  right  to  the  equestrian 
order  of  mankind. 

"  The  love  of  pony  breeding,"  writes  Mr.  W.  Moens,  of  Tweed, 
near  Boldre,  one  of  the  most  energetic  founders  of  the  Association  for 
the  Improvement  of  the  Breed  of  New  Forest  Ponies,  in  his  pamphlet 
on  the  subject,  "  lies  deep  in  the  breasts  of  most  commoners,  not  only  on 
account  of  its  somewhat  speculative  nature,  but  for  the  animals  them- 
selves. The  ponies  running  in  the  forest  are  rarely  left  for  long  without 
being  looked  after  to  see  how  they  are  doing,  or  at  least  being  inquired 
after  by  their  owners,  of  those  living  near  or  working  in  the  forest. 
Even  the  very  children  of  borderers  know  to  whom  the  mares  and  foals 
belong,  so  that  the  forest  ponies  afford  much  amusement  to  the  forest 
folk,  and  nothing  more  easily  excites  them  than  a  rumour  that  something 
or  other  is  about  to  be  done  that  may  injure  their  interests  as  regards 
their  pony  stock.  Some  of  the  large  breeders  own  as  many  as  one 
hundred  or  more  ponies,  many  forty  or  fifty,  the  smaller  occupiers  own 
as  many  as  they  can  keep  in  the  winter  season.  These,  according  to  the 
fancy  of  the  owners,  are  distributed  in  various  parts  of  the  forest,  where 
they  are  marked  by  the  agisters,  or  marksmen,  by  cutting  the  hairs  of 
the  tails  in  various  ways.  Thus  the  ponies  haunting  each  quarter  of  the 
forest  are  known,  the  agister  comparing  his  own  marks  with  those  made 
by  the  owner,  and  with  his  description  of  his  ponies.      Should  any  ponies 


46  "THE    NEW  FOREST 

stray  into  the  parks,  other  pastures,  or  the  lanes  around  the  forest, 
information  given  to  one  of  the  ag-isters  causes  it  to  be  soon  known 
to  whom  the  straying  ponies,  which  go  by  the  name  of  '  lane-haunters,' 
belong." 

The  present  system  of  identification  has  taken  the  place  of  a  far  more 
picturesque  and  exciting  method  of  marking  the  stock,  the  "  Drift  of  the 
Forest."  This  custom  was  a  survival  of  an  Act  of  Henry  VIII.,  which 
ordained  that  all  forests  and  chases  were  to  be  driven  yearly  within 
fifteen  days  after  Michaelmas,  and  if  any  mares  or  fillies  were  found  which 
were  not  likely  to  bear  good  foals  "  the  same  unprofitable  beasts  were  to 
be  killed  and  buried."  Long  after  this  drastic  command  had  ceased  to 
be  regarded,  the  "  Drift  "  was  maintained,  as  a  kind  of  census  for  the 
marking  of  all  forest  stock.  As  nearly  as  possible  on  the  same  day, 
keepers,  agisters,  and  owners  rode  out  to  drive  the  different  walks  of  the 
forest  towards  the  pounds.  These  were  not  necessarily  railed  enclosures. 
The  forest  hardly  contained  a  fence  in  the  old  days,  and  where,  round  the 
few  villages,  the  roads  were  bordered  by  fences,  the  space  between  was 
ingeniously  used  as  a  trap.  At  Brockenhurst,  for  instance,  the  foals, 
ponies,  cattle,  calves,  and  donkeys  were  forced  towards  the  lane  which, 
with  its  high  hedges,  runs  by  the  side  of  Brockenhurst  Manor  towards 
Beaulieu.  Once  past  the  manor  mill,  by  the  Boldre  River,  the  gate  across 
the  road  was  shut,  and  the  long  lane  was  filled  from  end  to  end  with  a 
promiscuous  throng  of  wild  and  tame  beasts,  thrusting,  neighing,  bellow- 
ing, and  crowding,  like  the  spoils  of  Amalek.  From  ten  to  twenty  men 
would  join  in  the  work  of  collecting  the  animals  from  the  open  forest. 
This  needed  both  skill  and  knowledge  to  perform  properly.  The  wilder 
ponies,  who  had  unpleasant  recollections  of  branding  and  other  rough 
handling  in  the  pounds,  would  often  make  a  determined  effort  to  break 
back,  taking  their  way  at  speed  through  the  most  difficult  and  treacherous 
ground.  There  too,  as  in  the  runs  of  New  South  Wales,  the  animals 
which  have  been  ridden  in  the  business  before  seemed  to  take  a  pleasure  in 
aiding  to  secure  the  wild  ones,  and  the  most  successful  means  to  bring  in 
a  fugitive  was  often  for  the  rider  to  sit  still,  and  leave  the  pony  he  rode 
to  choose  its  own  line,  and  the  time  for  making  the  last  push  which 
turned  the  other  back  to  the  herd. 

The  history  of  these  New  Forest  ponies  is  by  no  means  ascertained. 


THE    NEW  FOREST  47 

They  are  not  an  indigenous  animal  like  the  red  deer,  but  the  uniformity 
in  size  and  appearance  suggests  a  common  stock  and  ancestry.  The  first 
is,  however,  probably  due  to  the  almost  feral  state  in  which  these  ponies 
live  in  the  wild  district,  from  which  their  food-supply  is  entirely  obtained. 
No  pony  above  a  certain  size  is  likely  to  survive  in  the  forest,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  it  cannot  find  food  to  maintain  it.  In  winter,  by 
browsing  all  day  and  the  greater  part  of  the  night,  hardy  little 
"  foresters  "  of  from  twelve  to  thirteen  hands  high  can  just  make  both 
ends  meet,  though  they  are  extremely  thin  and  ragged.  But  anything 
much  above  that  size  would  need  artificial  support,  and  its  progeny 
would  deteriorate.  On  the  other  hand,  their  size  does  not  tend  to  fall 
much  below  the  standard  at  which  Nature  sets  the  limit,  which,  in  the 
case  of  the  New  Forest  pony,  seems  to  be  from  twelve  to  thirteen  and  a 
half  hands.  The  natural  appetite  and  needs  of  these  hardy  creatures 
prompt  them  to  do  the  best  for  themselves  from  day  to  day  with  a 
constancy  hardly  to  be  understood  by  human  beings  whose  minds  are  not 
concentrated  by  necessity  on  the  absorbing  effort  to  satisfy  the  hourly 
cravings  of  hunger.  Nature  levels  up  as  it  levels  down,  and  this  is 
probably  the  clue  to  the  uniformity  in  size  of  all  wild  animals,  as  well  as 
of  these  half-wild  ponies. 

The  condition  of  this  stability  is  of  course  that  man  interferes  no- 
where. But  the  practice  of  selecting  and  selling  away  from  the  forest 
all  the  best  of  the  ponies  did  threaten  a  marked  deterioration  in  the  stock 
about  ten  years  ago,  not  only  in  size  but  in  quality.  Now  the  "  quality  " 
of  the  ponies  is  obvious  and  unmistakable.  They  have  none  of  that 
lumpiness  and  want  of  due  proportion  so  often  seen  in  ponies  ;  on  the 
contrary,  they  are  far  more  like  miniature  horses,  and  horses  with  a  strain 
of  Arab  blood  in  them,  as  their  fine  eye,  small  heads,  and  high  quarters 
show.  Whatever  the  origin  of  the  ponies  in  the  past,  this  high-bred 
appearance  has  a  history,  and  a  very  interesting  one.  They  are  of  the 
blood  of  Eclipse,  or  rather  of  his  sire,  supplemented  in  later  years  by 
Arab  strains  of  historical  excellence. 

The  story  of  the  Arab  strain  in  these  ponies  is  mixed  up  with  one 
of  the  earliest  romances  of  the  modern  thoroughbred.  The  Duke  of 
Cumberland,  son  of  George  II.,  who  in  his  later  years  became  Ranger  of 
the  New  Forest,  exchanged  an  Arabian  horse  for  a  Yorkshire  thorough- 


48  rHE    NEW  FOREST 

bred,  which  he  called  Mask,  after  the  place  from  which  it  came. 
Mask  was  descended  from  the  Darley  Arab,  brought  from  Aleppo  in 
the  time  of  Queen  Anne,  and  from  the  Byerly  Turk,  thus  possessing 
a  pedigree  going  back  to  the  days  of  Charles  I.  Mask  was,  however,  sold 
for  a  small  sum  at  the  death  of  the  Duke,  and  remained  for  some  years  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  New  Forest,  where  he  became  the  sire  of  num- 
bers of  forest  ponies,  and  also  of  the  celebrated  Eclipse.  Recently  the 
Queen  sent  to  the  forest  two  thoroughbred  Arabs — Abegan  and  Yirassan 
— the  former  a  gift  of  the  Imaum  of  Muscat.  Lastly,  in  1891,  the 
Association  for  the  Improvement  of  the  Breed  of  New  Forest  Ponies  was 
founded  at  Lyndhurst,  which  holds  an  annual  show  of  pony  sires,  and 
grants  premiums  to  such  as  come  up  to  the  standard  required,  on  con- 
dition that  they  are  allowed  to  run  in  the  forest.  This  pony  show  is 
one  of  the  prettiest  sights  of  the  forest  year.  It  is  held  annually  at  the 
end  of  April,  just  as  the  leaves  are  appearing  on  the  beeches  and  thorns, 
not  in  some  formal  show-yard  in  a  town,  but  on  a  lovely  lawn  outside 
Lyndhurst,  called  Swan  Green. 

The  beauty  of  this  little  sylvan  theatre  has  already  been   described  as 
the  first  scene   in  the  forest  which  presents   itself  on  the  way  to  Mark 
Ash  from  Lyndhurst  town.      The  scene  at  the  spring  pony  show  in  the 
present  year  was  a  busy  contrast  to  the  ordinary  quiet  of  the  little  green. 
In  these  country  gatherings  the  puzzle  is  to  know  where  the  people  come 
from  and  how  they  get  there.      It  had  been  pouring  with  rain  all  the 
morning,  and   the   grove    beyond    the  green   was   dripping   with    sunlit 
showers  of  drops.     Yet  a  large  part    of  the  forest  population    seemed   to 
be  present.      Under  an  oak  on   the   hillside    a  white   pony,  saddled  but 
riderless,  was  cropping  the   leaves  from   a  thorn-bush,  in   company  with 
four  or  five  sooty,  ragged,  wet,   long-tailed   colts,  dragged   in  from   the 
forest.      Smart    well-groomed    pony    stallions    were     showing    off   their 
paces  on  the  road  on  either  side.      In  the  centre  a  ring  of  about  an  acre 
had  been   enclosed  with   hurdles,  within   which  were    the    ponies,   their 
owners,  or  leaders,  and  the  judges  ;   and  around,  in  the  e very-day  dress 
of  working  life,  the  men    and  boys  of  the    forest.      "  Wild    ponies   and 
wild  people  "  was  the  remark  of  a  bystander.      But  the  roughness  of  the 
forester  only  extends  to  costume  ;  his  manners  are    nearly   always  pre- 
possessing, and  his  conversation,  on   topics   in  which   like  that   of  pony- 


THE   NEW  FOREST  49 

breeding,  he  is  an  authority,  is  as  brisk  and  epigrammatic  as  that  of  a 
farmer  in  the  Yorkshire  dales.      Smart  people  in  breeches  and  gaiters,  old 
foresters  with  faces  rugged  as  their  oaks,  short  black-eyed  "  gippos  "  pry- 
ing and  peeping  between  the  broad  shoulders  of  the  native  race,  and  all 
the  school  children  of  Lyndhurst,  were  grouped  round  the  ring.     Within 
it,  the  ponies  were  being  led  round  in  procession  before  the  judges,  who, 
notebook  in  hand,  were  marking  the  merits  and  defects  of  each.    A  curly- 
headed  sweep  headed  the  troop,  carrying,  instead  of  a  whip,  his  soot-brush, 
with  which   he  occasionally  whacked  his  handsome  rough    pony,  a  piece 
of  "effect,"  which  had  evidently  been  carefully  thought  out  beforehand. 
Most  of  their  ponies  had  spent  the  whole  of  the  last  trying  season  in  the 
forest,  and  showed   evident  signs  of  the  privations  they  had  undergone. 
Many  had  their  rough  coats  still  almost  unshed.     This  produces  a  curious 
effect,  for  though  the  forest  ponies  are  of  all   known  colours,  the  masses 
of  unkempt,  shaggy  winter  coat,  which  cling  to  them,  are  of  colours  quite 
unknown  to  the  eye  which  only  sees  groomed  horses,  or  those  which  have 
been  out  at  grass  for  a  few  months  in  a  meadow.      All  sorts  of  shades  of 
soot-colour,  sand-colour,  dusty  brown,  smoky  gray,  lie  in  rags  and  tatters 
on  their  flanks,  colours  which  alter  again  when,  as  in  the  present  case,  the 
mop-like   mass  is   drenched  with  wet,   or   drying  in  the  sun.      Yet  the 
quality  of  the  race  shows  in  the  fine  head,  and   large  eye,  and  above  all, 
when  they  begin  to  move.     Unshod,  and  untrained,  they  step  with  all  the 
careless  freedom  of  a  race-horse,  giving  that  curious  impression  of  moving 
in  detail,   which  the  shuffling  jog  of  a  coarse  bred  pony   never  creates. 
The  contrast  between  the  animals  towed  in  by  halters,  with  the  mud  of 
the  bog  still  clinging  to  their   flanks,  and   their  civilised   relations  "  in 
service,"  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  feature  of  the  show.      But  the  con- 
dition in  which  the  true  forest  pony  appears  after  his  winter  in  the  open, 
is  an  excellent  guide  to  the  size,  points  and  quality  necessary  for  combining 
the  maximum  of  speed  and  strength,  with  the  power  to  endure  the  hard 
life  in  which  they  are  born  and  bred  ;  and  the  judges  seem  to  grasp  the 
"true  inwardness"  of  each  pony's  merits  through  any  depth  of  matted 
hair  and  mud,  and  in  spite  of  any  want  of  flesh  between  hide  and  bones. 
The   privations   of   the    last  season    fell   heavily  on   all   grazing    stock, 
whether  semi-wild,  or  kept  upon  the  farms.     Yet  it  was  remarked  that 
ponies  left  to  run  wild  in  the  forest  did  better  during  the  long  drought 

D 


so  THE    NEW  FOREST 

than  those  which  were  "  taken  up  "  and  put  nito  pastures  on  inclosed 
land.  They  got  into  the  recesses  of  the  bogs  and  swamps,  and  there 
found  more  food  and  better,  than  was  available  on  the  burnt-up  meadows 
of  the  farms.  These  ponies  must  in  fact  be  judged  in  the  first  place  from 
their  power  to  exist  as  wild  animals  :  the  other  qualities  follow. 

The  old  saying  that  "a  good  horse  is  never  a  bad  colour,"  seems 
true  of  these  "  Foresters."  In  the  endless  circle  moving  round  the  ring, 
there  was  as  much  difference  in  the  colour  of  the  animals  as  in  the 
appearance  of  the  men  and  boys  who  led,  hauled,  or:  pushed  them  round. 
On  the  whole  blacks  and  roans  seemed  the  most  numerous.  Of  seventy 
animals  in  the  ring  at  one  time,  thirty  were  either  roans,  grays  or  blacks. 
As  for  the  two-year-olds,  wild  little  fellows  fresh  from  the  forest,  awkward, 
reluctant,  shaggy,  and  "  pixie-ridden  "  to  the  last  degree,  their  colours 
were  so  obscured  by  long  hair  and  wet,  that  blacks,  browns,  and  bays 
seemed  all  shrouded  in  a  dingy  earth  colour.  But  all  walked  with  freedom 
and  grace,  and  most  would  probably  have  fetched  from  £j  to  ^12  as 
they  stood.  It  is  said  that  the  yearlings  if  removed  to  the  good  pastures 
of  Sussex,  Dorset,  or  Somerset,  will  grow  a  hand  taller  than  their  dams. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  from  the  rough  and  poor  condition  of  these 
creatures  when  seen  in  April,  after  exposure  to  the  long  hard  winter,  that 
their  life  is  uniformly  one  of  privation  and  hardship.  The  health  and 
freedom  which  they  enjoy  together  make  them  on  the  whole  a  very  happy 
and  contented  race.  During  the  summer  each  sire  collects  his  little  troop 
of  mares,  and  so  far  as  possible  keeps  them  from  the  approach  of  any 
rival.  In  the  spring  when  the  foals  are  born,  there  are  {tvv  prettier  sights 
than  the  little  mares  and  their  young,  which  they  then  bring  into  the 
most  sheltered  and  beautiful  lawns  near  that  part  of  the  forest  which  they 
haunt.  Later  in  the  year,  when  the  sun  is  hot  and  the  midge  and  forest 
fly — perhaps  the  greatest  pest  to  horses  which  exists  in  England,  begin  to 
worry  them  in  the  thick  cover  and  low  ground,  ponies  and  cattle  alike 
leave  the  low  ground  at  about  9  a.m.,  and  until  the  afternoon  frequent 
the  "shades"  or  open  ground  where  they  stand  close  together  half 
asleep,  swishing  off  the  flies  with  their  long  tails.  The  accurate  observer, 
whose  work  has  been  quoted  previously,  thinks  that  these  shades  are 
chosen  according  to  the  prevailing  wind,  "  sometimes  being  chosen  in  the 
full  sun,  where  the  summer  breeze  is  better  felt  than  in  the  surrounding 


THE   NEW  FOREST  51 

bottoms  ;  at  other  times  they  will  stand  in  a  favourite  part  of  some 
forest  stream,  or  in  a  drift  away  over  the  railway.  Blackdown  is  a 
favourite  shade,  being  a  ridge  surrounded  by  bottoms,  where  there  is 
plenty  of  good  feed  in  the  driest  summers,  with  abundance  of  food  and 
water.  This  district  is  perhaps  the  most  favoured  of  any,  being  haunted 
by  over  600  ponies  and  cattle,  or  more  than  one-tenth  of  the  whole  stock 
run  in  the  forest."  This  was  the  district  which  it  was  proposed  to  take 
as  a  military  rifle  range,  a  proposal  which  was  successfully  resisted  largely 
on  the  ground  that  the  ponies  would  thus  lose  their  favourite  summer 
haunt. 


CHAPTER   IV 


THE     NORTHERN     FOREST 


Stony  Cross — Riifus  Stone  and  the  Rufus  Legend — A  brief  for  the  prosecution  of  Sir  Walter 
Tyrrell — The  viezu  from  Stony-Cross  Plain — Bramshazv  Wood—Malwood — Minstead 
and  its  park. 

The  great  ridge  of  Stony-Cross  Plain  divides  the   northern  from  the 

central   forest.     Along    it    runs    the    ancient    road    from   Winchester  to 

Ringwood,  and  thence  to  the    port   of    Poole.       From    its   summit    the 

whole  of  the  forest,  north,  south,  and  east,  is  seen  in  endless  waves  of 

woods  ;  and  in  the  deep  glen  below  its  eastern  shoulder  is  the  spot  where 

Rufus  was  killed  by  the  arrow  of  Sir  Walter  Tyrrell  on  the  evening  of 

the  second  of  August,  a.d.  iioo.     In  the  monkish  stories  the  death  of 

Rufus  became  a  text,  not  for  the  vengeance  which  comes  on  the  despoiler 

of   the  poor,   as  in   the   case  of   the  death    of   the   Conqueror's    other 

children  on  the  scene  of  their  father's  oppressions,  but  of  the  vengeance 

of  God  upon  the  robber  of  the  Church.     The  fate  of  the   brutal   scoffer 

who  mocked  at  the  holy  saints,  who  kept  abbeys  without  their  abbots, 

sees   without   their  bishops,  and   the    very   throne   of    Canterbury    itself 

vacant  for  three  years  while  he  fattened  on  the   incomes  of  the  servants 

of  God,  is  the  theme  of  ecclesiastical  story.      It  was  almost  inevitable  that 

this  colour  should  be  put  on  the  sudden  death  of  the  spoiler  by  zealous 

Churchmen.     Those  who  see  in  the  denunciations  of  the   Church,  and 

in   the   prophecies   of  an  impending  requital  which   were  in    circulation 

up  to  the   day   of  Rufus's    death,  a    motive,  which    alters  the    part    of 

Tyrrell   from     the    unconscious    instrument    to    the    secret    emissary    of 

vengeance,  will  find  some  curious  circumstantial  evidence  in  an  examina- 


THE   NEW  FOREST  53 

tion  of  the  spot  in  which  the  king's  body  was  found,  assuming  that 
that  now  marked  as  the  place  where  Rufus  fell  is  rightly  identified. 
There  is  good  reason  for  thinking  that  in  spite  of  the  lapse  of  time, 
tradition  in  this  respect  is  right.  The  place  is  close  to  Mai  wood,  where 
the  king  was  lodging  the  night  before,  and  had  dined  and  drunk  on  the 
very  day  of  his  death. 

Malwood  has  for  centuries,  probably  from  the  days  of  Rufus,  been 
the  residence  of  men  whose  business  has  been  to  know  and  visit  every  part 
of  the  forest  in  that  particular  "walk."  Those  in  the  house  at  the  time 
of  the  king's  death  must  have  had  knowledge  of  the  spot  where  the 
body  was  found.  Even  if  Purkiss,  the  charcoal-burner,  who  drove  it  in 
his  cart  to  Winchester,  did  not  mention  to  the  other  foresters  the  scene 
of  so  dreadful  a  discovery,  it  is  almost  certain  that  after  the  dispersion  of 
the  party  at  the  lodge,  the  flight  of  Tyrrell,  and  the  desperate  ride  of 
Henry  to  Winchester,  in  order  to  seize  the  succession  to  the  Crown  with 
the  blessings  of  the  Church,  which  had  banned  his  brother,  the  domestics 
must  have  stolen  down  the  hill  to  look  at  the  body  where  it  lay.  The 
death  of  princes,  even  if  not  followed  by  the  appearance  of  the  caladrus, 
the  ill-omened  bird,  which,  according  to  the  monkish  bestiaries,  only 
appeared  on  earth  to  bring  news  of  the  death  of  kings,  must  always  be 
a  topic  of  awe  and  curiosity  to  those  near  the  scene,  even  if  fear  closes 
their  mouths  and  prevents  them  from  paying  due  reverence  to  the  body. 
The  murder  of  Absalom  the  beautiful  in  the  wood  of  Ephraim  was 
known  to  more  than  the  "  captains  of  the  host,"  though  they  dissembled 
all  knowledge  of  the  deed.  The  descendants  of  the  charcoal-burner, 
who  carried  the  body  to  Winchester,  enjoyed  for  centuries  the  rights  given 
them  as  a  reward,  among  others  tbat  of  taking  all  such  wood  as  they 
could  gather  "  by  hook  or  by  crook,"  dead  branches,  that  is,  which  have 
not  yet  fallen,  but  might  be  broken  off,  though  not  lopped  by  axe  or 
bill.  Thus  the  evidence  as  to  the  exact  place  of  the  king's  death  does 
not  depend  on  history,  or  upon  general  tradition.  It  is  fixed  by  a 
concurrent  and  very  coherent  though  independent  set  of  circumstances. 
In  the  first  place  by  the  fact  which  we  have  glanced  at,  that  by  the  fixed 
and  unchanging  order  of  the  forest  there  have  lived  in  continued  succes- 
sion, within  ten  minutes'  ride  of  the  place,  persons  employed  for  eight 
hundred  years  to  traverse  daily  that  particular  part  of  the  forest,  Malwood 


54  "THE    NEW  FOREST 

Walk,  in  the  exercise  of  the  same  duty,  the  supervision  of  the  deer  and 
the  wood,  men  to  whom  by  the  very  nature  of  their  business  every  tree, 
rivulet,  and  pool  is  a  familiar  object,  frequently  associated  with  some 
fact,  far  less  important,  such  as  the  death  of  an  eagle,  or  the  leap  of  a 
deer,  which  is  a  part  of  the  ordinary  knowledge  of  the  wood  transmitted 
from  one  generation  of  foresters  to  the  next.  Secondly,  the  spot  ori- 
ginally marked  by  an  oak  tree,  was  again  marked  by  a  stone,  set  up  by 
Lord  Delaware,  then  warden  of  the  forest,  in  1745,  which  stone  was 
afterwards  cased  in  iron  in  1841.  If  the  tree  which  in  1745  was  in  such 
a  state  of  decay  that  its  place  was  taken  by  the  stone,  was  the  same  which 
was  standing  at  the  time  of  Rufus's  death,  it  must  have  been  more  than 
650  years  old  at  the  time  of  its  total  disappearance — not  an  impossible  age 
by  any  means,  for  the  fragment  in  Brockenhurst  churchyard  probably 
stood  there  quite  as  early,  and  Gilpin  speaks  of  "  a  few  venerable  oaks  in 
the  New  Forest  that  chronicle  upon  their  furrowed  trunks  ages  before  the 
Conquest."  But  the  tree  may  have  been  a  shoot,  or  sapling  or  seedling, 
of  the  original  oak,  and  still  have  identified  the  spot,  just  as  the  present 
"  Cadenham  oak,"  which  buds  at  Christmas,  marks  the  site  of  the 
old  tree. 

Taking  these  considerations  as  adequate  to  maintain  the  truth  of 
tradition  as  to  the  exact  spot  at  which  the  king  died,  the  inferences  from 
an  examination  of  the  ground  are  as  follows.  The  king  was  shot,  not  in 
the  wood,  but  at  the  very  edge,  almost  at  the  last  tree.  Immediately 
west  of  "  Rufus  Stone "  the  good  soil  stops,  and  a  very  poor,  steep, 
marshy,  slope  begins,  which  runs  right  up  to  the  top  of  the  hill  by  Stony 
Cross.  Wood  does  not  grow  on  it  now,  and  never  could  have  grown, 
for  the  nature  of  the  soil  has  not  changed,  and  remains  in  the 
same  condition  for  the  growth  or  non-growth  of  timber,  as  in  the 
days  of  the  Conquest.  Again,  the  legend  says  that  the  king  was 
looking  after  a  wounded  deer,  "  shading  his  eyes  with  his  hand." 
Now  he  would  not  have  needed  to  shade  his  eyes  had  he  been  in  the 
thick  forest,  though  as  the  deer  would  naturally  run  out  of  the  wood 
across  the  open,  and  the  sun  was  in  the  west,  for  it  was  late  on  an 
August  day,  the  account  exactly  fits  the  supposition  that  William  was 
standing  where  he  is  said  to  have  stood  and  gazing  after  the  wounded 
deer,    as   it  ran    out  across  the  Stony-Cross  Common,  when  he  received 


~^ 


THE    NEW  FOREST  55 

the  fatal  arrow,  William,  then,  was  in  the  open,  or  on  the  very  edge  of 
the  wood.  That  he  should  have  been  shot  by  accident  in  such  a  place, 
with  a  weapon  like  a  bow,  seems  most  improbable.  Moreover  it  is 
likely  that  both  he  and  Tyrrell  were  waiting  for  deer  to  be  driven  to 
them.  The  place  is  still  a  natural  pass  for  deer,  and  the  "  Rufus  "  Stone 
stands  on  the  neck  of  a  little  bluff,  on  either  side  of  which  driven  deer 
would  naturally  pass  on  their  way  up  the  valley,  and  up  which  they  do 
pass  now  when  hunted.  Supposing  Rufus  to  have  turned  and  shot  one, 
his  back  or  side  would  be  presented  to  the  man  who  was  guarding  the 
other  pass  below  the  knoll.  On  the  other  hand  it  was  a  place  which 
gave  admirable  opportunities  for  the  escape  of  an  assassin.  Just  above, 
or  over  Stony-Cross  Plain  ran  the  sound  road,  along  the  high  open 
ridges,  straight  across  the  north  of  the  forest,  not  to  Lymington  or 
Beaulieu,  which  would  probably  be  ports  friendly  to  the  king  whose 
property  the  forest  was,  but  across  the  Avon,  out  of  the  reach  of 
summary  forest  law,  down  to  Poole,  whence  ships  were  constantly 
passing  over  the  Channel  for  Normandy.  The  course  which  Tyrrell  is 
said  to  have  taken  fits  exactly  with  the  theory  that  he  committed  the 
murder  here,  with  the  intention  of  instant  flight  by  this  convenient 
road.  The  story  runs  that  he  rode  to  the  Avon  at  the  spot  still  called 
Tyrrell's  Ford,  and,  there  after  forcing  the  smith  to  shoe  his  horse 
with  the  shoes  reversed,  killed  the  man,  that  he  might  not  betray  him. 
A  yearly  fine  paid  by  the  owners  of  the  house  where  he  crossed  at  what  is 
still  called  Tyrrell's  ford,  is  said  to  record  the  memory  of  the  passage. 
Whether  this  legend  be  true  in  detail  or  not,  it  seems  agreed  that  Tyrrell 
did  escape  from  Poole  to  Normandy,  and  that  there,  after  giving  to  Abbot 
Suger  his  account  of  the  king's  death  in  which  he  claimed  that  it  was 
accidental,  took  the  unusual  step — for  a  man  with  a  guiltless  conscience 
— of  making  the  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  in  performing  which  he  died. 

The  view  from  the  height  of  Stony  Cross  Plain,  which  was  the  scene 
of  Tyrrell's  Ride,  gives  perhaps  the  best  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  forest 
and  its  relation  to  the  splendid  country  which  surrounds  it.  Along  the 
back  of  the  ridge,  on  the  high  firm  ground,  the  ancient  road  runs  from 
Cadenham,  where  it  is  joined  by  the  main  roads  from  Winchester  and 
Southampton,  straight  across  the  forest,  to  Ringwood.  This  northern 
ridge  is  almost  the  highest  land  in   the   forest.      Beyond  it,   far  to  the 


S6  THE   NEPF  FOREST 

south,  the  whole  district  falls  away  to  the  Solent,  beyond  which  the  hills 
of  the  Isle  of  Wight  are  distinctly  seen.  This  "  prospect  "  of  the  forest 
has  nothing  of  the  chess-board  appearance,  usual  in  extensive  views  in 
southern  England.  Right  away  to  the  sea-shore  the  eye  sees  nothing  but 
woods,  commons,  and  heaths,  not  in  squares  and  patches,  but  in  a  succes- 
sion of  long  ridges  which  seem  to  run  out  from  right  to  left  from  a 
shoulder  of  higher  land  to  the  west.  Lyndhurst  spire  shoots  up  in  the 
centre,  Minstead,  Bolderwood,  Rhinefield,  Wilverly,  and  Christchurch 
bound  it  on  the  west.  Eastward,  the  eye  ranges  across  Southampton 
Water  to  the  long  line  of  woods,  and  faintly  seen  white  houses  near 
Netley  Abbey,  and  the  old  fortress  of  Calshot  Castle,  Thus  the  whole 
southern  forest  is  within  sight,  with  its  natural  and  ancient  boundaries  of 
the  Avon  Valley,  Southampton  Water,  and  the  Solent. 

Looking  backwards,  north  and  north-east,  the  Wiltshire  Downs  are 
seen,  and  to  the  right  the  chalk  hills  beyond  Romsey,  abutting  on 
Winchester.  The  two  great  cities  of  Wessex,  Winchester  and  Salisbury, 
here  have  joint  claims  upon  the  forest.  Timber  for  the  roofing  of  Salis- 
bury was  cut  in  Bramshaw  Wood,  where  it  abuts  on  Wiltshire,  and 
adjacent  are  the  lands  of  the  wardens  of  Winchester  College.  Days 
might  be  spent  in  gazing  on  this  magnificent  panorama,  without  exhaust- 
ing its  beauties.  Across  the  valley  to  the  north,  at  the  deepest  point  of 
which  Rufus  met  his  death,  the  beautiful  beech  woods  of  Eyeworth  Walk 
and  Bramble  Hill  are  spread  on  the  slope  like  curly  fleeces.  As  the  day 
goes  on,  the  cattle  come  trooping  up  from  the  woods  to  seek  relief  from 
the  forest  flies  on  the  open  '-shade"  in  front  of  the  inn,  and  the 
air  is  resonant  with  the  music  of  their  bells. 

Malwood,  where  stood  the  house  in  which  Rufus  lay  the  night  before 
his  death,  and  where  till  the  present  generation,  the  keeper  of  Malwood 
Walk  had  his  lodge,  is  the  eastern  buttress  of  this  high  Stony-Cross 
Ridge.  Sir  William  Vernon  Harcourt's  beautiful  house  now  stands 
on  the  site  ;  long,  low,  timbered  and  gabled,  it  is  perhaps  the  most  pleas- 
ing of  the  many  new  mansions  which  now  stand  on  sites  leased  from  the 
Crown  on  the  ground  once  occupied  by  the  old  lodges.  Between 
Malwood  and  Lyndhurst  lies  the  beautiful  village  and  park  of  Minstead. 
It  is  difficult  to  account  for  the  change  which  the  barrier  of  a  paling 
makes  in   the  general  aspect  of   trees  and  herbage  within   and  without. 


THE    NEW  FOREST  57 

The  park  was  clearly  taken  from  the  forest,  yet  every  blade  of  grass 
seems  different,  and  every  tree  has  a  "domesticated"  look.  Probably 
this  is  due  to  the  work  of  the  scythe  on  the  one,  and  of  the  inevitable 
tendency  to  improve  on  nature  in  the  other.  Outside,  in  the  forest,  the 
grass  has  never  been  mown,  and  constantly  browsed  and  trampled  by 
cattle.  The  trees  have  never  been  lopped,  except  as  the  wind  tore  off 
the  rotten  branches.  Thus  the  grass  of  the  forest  is  like  a  bowling  alley 
set  with  flowers,  the  grass  of  the  park,  the  common  and  cultivated 
verdure  of  the  hayfield.  The  positive  contribution  of  the  park  to  the 
forest  landscape  is  in  the  number  of  trees  of  species  not  indigenous  to  the 
forest,  which  are  properly  planted  round  great  houses.  Thus  at  Minstead 
Manor  the  long  drive  is  fringed  by  masses  of  rhododendron  twenty  feet 
high.  Their  blaze  of  red  flower  on  the  dark-green  background  of 
shining  leafage,  the  yellow  clusters  of  azalea,  and  the  few  gigantic 
araucarias,  which  rise  from  the  mass  below  without  a  single  dead  branch, 
make  a  beautiful  incident  in  the  midst  of  the  natural  forest.  The  fine 
mansion,  and  ancient  and  picturesque  stables  and  ofiices,  the  kennels  and 
gardens  bowered  in  this  mass  of  exotic  shrubbery,  with  all  the  evidences 
of  ancient  and  distinguished  inhabitation  suggest  a  train  of  thought 
different  from,  but  not  out  of  harmony  with,  that  which  arises  in  the 
contemplation  of  the  natural  woods. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE    SOUTHERN     FOREST    AND     BEAULIEU 

BeauUeu  Abbey  and  its  history — The  ruins  at  St.  Leonard's — 77v  Solent  shore — Cobbetfs 
admiration  of  the  view — Sowley  Pond — Wild-fowl — The  Beaulieu  river  and  Buckler'' s 
Hard — Nelson's  flagship  built  in  the  forest^Commoners  and  squatters — Their  houses  at 
Hill  Top — Forest  rights — Pigs  and  pannage — Szvineherds — Rights  of  fuel — Future  of 
the  forest. 

In  the  purview  of  the  forest  the  great  and  ancient  domain  of 
Beaulieu  claims  separate  and  unique  consideration.  Geographically  it  is 
the  riverine  and  maritime  district  of  the  forest,  in  which  the  Abbey  of 
Beaulieu  itself,  at  the  head  of  its  tidal  river,  marks  the  point  of  connec- 
tion, between  the  inland  portions  and  the  beautiful  Solent  shore.  It  was 
part  of  the  original  forest  of  William  the  Conqueror,  and  might  have 
remained  like  the  rest  of  the  great  hunting-ground,  a  wild  and  sparsely 
populated  region,  whose  main  interest  to  the  modern  world  is  that  the 
changes,  which  make  history,  have  been  so  little  felt  that  in  its  present 
condition  it  hardly  invites  historical  inquiry,  because  it  presents  itself 
almost  unchanged  by  centuries,  as  a  fossil  fact. 

The  act  of  King  John  in  granting  this  magnificent  domain  for  the 
support  of  an  abbey  of  Cistercians,  withdrew  it  at  once  and  for  ever  from 
the  deadening,  though  conservative,  influence  of  the  forest  law,  and  from 
that  moment  Beaulieu  has  a  separate  and  dignified  history,  the  human 
interest  of  which  exceeds  that  of  the  forest  itself.  The  resources  and 
splendour  of  this  domain  are  such  that  it  has,  from  the  appointment  of 
its  first  abbot  until  the  present  time,  maintained  its  position  as  an 
imperium  in  imperio  through  all  the  tumults  of  history.  It  is  of  vast 
extent,  yet  the  boundaries  of  the  Manor  Bank  have  never  been  broken  or 


THE    NEW  FOREST 


59 


encroached  upon.  Backed  by  the  forest  and  bounded  by  the  sea,  fertile 
in  corn,  in  wine — the  remains  of  its  terraced  vineyards  and  the  house  of 
the  winepress  still  survive — and  inclosing  nearly  the  whole  of  a  splendid 
tidal  river,  it  could  exist  as  an  independent  whole,  alike  in  beauty, 
position,  and  natural  resources.  Whether  in  mortmain — the  "dead 
hand  "  of  the  Church — or  in  private  possession,  its  resources  have  been 
consecutively  in  the  power  of  a  single  owner,  who  has  enjoyed  a  prestige 


Jllejcr/ljistecL. 


Bcdulieu  Abbey. 


from  its  possession  such  as  is  not  conferred  by  any  domain  of  similar 
extent.  The  privileges  granted  to  the  abbots  by  King  John,  and  con- 
firmed by  charter  after  charter  of  his  successors,  were  at  least  equal  to 
those  enjoyed  by  the  kings  themselves,  when  the  manor  was  part  of  their 
forest.  The  abbey  enjoyed  every  ordinary  forest  right,  and  some  which 
were  exceptional  ;  the  abbots  might  hunt  within  the  manor  and  follow 
their  game  into  the  forest  a  bowshot  beyond  its  boundaries  ;  their  hounds 
were  excepted  from  the  provisions  as  to  mutilation  if  found  in  the  forest, 
and  to  this  day  the  manor  shares  with  only  one   other,  that  of  Brocken- 


6o  THE    NEW  FOREST 

hurst,  the  privilege  of  feeding  sheep  in  the  forest.  The  Prince  Abbots  of 
Beaulieu  sat  among  the  Lords  spiritual  in  Parliament  for  200  years,  and 
after  the  confiscation  of  their  estates  the  prestige  of  the  possession  of  the 
manor  seems  never  to  have  failed  to  confer  upon  its  owners  the  dignity  of  a 
peerage,  or  a  step  in  rank  on  those  who  already  enjoyed  it.  In  1538  Sir 
Thomas  Wriothesley,  Lord  High  Chancellor,  bought  the  entire  manor, 
then  worth  ^^428  6s.  8d.  a  year,  making,  according  to  Cobbett's  estimate, 
/^8,500  of  our  money,  for  ^2,000.  He  was  created  Earl  of  Southampton. 
In  the  reign  of  William  III.  Ralph,  Lord  Montagu,  married  the  heiress  of 
the  Earl  of  Southamption,  and  was  created  Duke  of  Montagu.  Edward 
Hussey,  who  married  one  of  the  co-heiresses  of  John  Duke  of  Montagu, 
was  created  an  earl — Earl  of  Beaulieu.  At  this  time  the  manor  was  for 
one  life  divided,  for  the  other  daughter  of  John  Duke  of  Montagu 
married  the  Duke  George  her  cousin.  She  left  a  daughter,  and  the 
Earl  of  Beaulieu  dying  without  children,  the  estate  passed  to  this 
daughter,  who  married  the  Duke  of  Buccleuch.  The  great-grandson  of 
that  Duke,  Lord  Henry  Scott,  became  possessor  of  Beaulieu,  and  was 
created  Baron  Montagu  in  1887.  Thus  the  possession  of  Beaulieu  seems 
to  carry  with  it  a  patent  of  nobility  as  well  as  the  enjoyment  of  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  estates  in  England. 

The  history  of  the  abbey  is  perhaps  as  good  an  example  as  can  be 
found  of  the  magnificence,  method,  and  good  sense  with  which  these  great 
foundations  were  projected,  developed,  and  maintained.  The  story  which 
attributes  the  original  grant  to  a  fit  of  superstitious  remorse,  may  or 
may  not  be  founded  on  fact  ;  if  it  is,  the  subsequent  record,  of  the  use 
made  of  the  gift  is  in  strange  contrast  to  its  inception.  The  tale  is  that 
the  king  summoned  the  abbots  of  the  white-robed  Cistercians  to  meet 
him  at  Lincoln,  and  that  enraged  at  their  hostility  to  himself,  he  ordered 
them  to  be  trampled  to  death  by  wild  horses.  His  soldiers  refused  to 
become  executioners,  and  the  abbots  fied.  Next  morning  the  king 
confided  to  his  confessor  that  he  had  dreamt  during  the  night  that  he  had 
been  brought  up  for  judgment  before  St.  Peter,  who  had  handed  him 
over  to  the  abbots  to  be  beaten,  and  that  he  was  still  aching  from  the 
blows.  The  confessor  induced  him  to  apologise  to  the  abbots,  and  to 
make  reparation  by  founding  an  abbey  of  Cistercians  at  Beaulieu. 

There  is  no  need  of  this  legend  to  account  for  John's  anxiety  to  have 


rHE    NEW  FOREST  6i 

at  least  one  body  of  powerful  and  well-affected  ecclesiastics  on  his  side. 
From  the  time  of  this  great  gift  the  Cistercians  remained  loyal  to  the 
king,  even  against  the  orders  of  the  Pope  himself ;  and  even  during  the 
interdict,  when  the  whole  realm  lay  under  the  Papal  ban,  as  the  result 
of  John's  quarrel  with  Rome,  these  English  Cistercians  celebrated 
Divine  service  at  the  command  of  their  abbots,  for  which  they  were 
excommunicated  by  Innocent  III,  The  king  restored  to  them  their 
lands  which  had  been  seized  on  account  of  the  interdict,  and  at  the  fourth 
Lateran  council  held  at  Rome  in  the  year  121 5,  at  which  were  present  312 
bishops,  and  more  than  200  abbots  and  priors,  the  abbot  of  Beaulieu, 
on  behalf  of  King  John,  impeached  Archbishop  Langton  of  high  treason 
for  his  share  in  the  direction  of  the  barons'  revolt.  The  founding  of 
Beaulieu  was  a  piece  of  policy  on  the  part  of  the  king,  the  reason  for 
which  is  sufficiently  clear  by  its  results.  But  the  magnificence  of  its 
development  was  partly  due  to  fortune.  The  piety  of  John's  son, 
Henry  III.,  enriched  it  for  conscience'  sake  ;  one  of  his  numerous  grants 
was  that  of  the  profits  of  three  years  from  his  stud  of  horses  in  the  forest, 
to  pay  for  masses  for  his  father's  soul.  In  his  reign  the  abbey  church 
was  completed,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  buildings  in  the  precinct  were 
either  projected  or  begun.  The  church  was  as  large  as  that  of  Romsey  ; 
but  though  the  lines  of  its  foundations  have  been  traced,  and  are  kept 
in  evidence  with  the  same  care  which  is  bestowed  on  the  preservation  of 
each  and  every  portion  of  the  ruins,  the  building  itself  has  disappeared. 
It  is  hard  to  conceive  a  greater  shock  to  religious  sentiment  than  the 
ruthless  destruction  of  this  abbey  church,  while  all  that  was  useful  for 
secular  purposes  was  retained  ;  the  barns  and  cellars  kept  for  the  storage 
of  the  wealth  which  the  land  still  yielded  to  its  new  owner,  the  stones  of 
the  house  of  God  taken  to  build  Hurst  Castle,  and  the  lead  of  its 
roof  to  cover  the  towers  of  the  sister  fortress  at  Calshot, 

The  buildings  which  remain  are  still  among  the  most  beautiful  ruins 
of  the  south,  and  serve  to  show  the  scale  on  which  the  abbey  was 
conceived;  and  the  wisdom  which  dictated  the  choice  of  its  site.  They 
lie  on  a  gently  sloping  meadow,  in  which  the  great  wall  of  the  precinct 
stands  here  and  there  in  gray  masses,  marking  the  lines  of  an  inclosure  a 
mile  and  a  quarter  round.  The  mass  of  the  buildings,  the  church,  the 
cloisters,  the  abbot's  house,  the   guest   house,  and  last  but  not  least,  the 


62 


THE    NEW  FOREST 


means  and  appliances  which  converted  into  wealth  the  commodities  which 
fed  the  colony,  stood  close  to  the  very  head  of  the  tidal  river.  There 
were  the  mill,  the  storehouses,  and  a  quay,  to  which  the  ships  from 
France,  Spain  and  the  Hanse  towns  came  as  the  natural  port  of  what  was 
at  once  an  outlet  for  the  trade  of  the  forest,  and  the  seat  of  a  great 
industrial  community.     Part  of  this  quay  is  submerged;  but  part  remains 

covered  with  grass  and  flowers;  and 
this  quiet,  butterfly-haunted  spot  is 
still  called  Cheapside.    Opposite  and 
abutting  on  this  quay  are  the  ruins 
of    the    abbey,    and    the     beautiful 
"Palace  House,"  the  centre  of  which 
is  the  lofty  "  Gate  House  "  of  the 
abbey,  while  round  it  the  buildings 
of  a   modern  mansion  are  grouped 
with  such  skill  that  the  house  forms 
a    whole  as   completely   adapted  to 
its  setting  and  surroundings  as   the 
abbey  itself.    Within  the  great  wall 
of   the    precinct    are   the  refectory, 
now     converted     into     the     parish 
church,  and  the  remains  of  the  ex- 
quisite cloister  court,  of  the  chapter 
house,  and  of  a  huge  chamber,  still 
in  good  repair,  in  which  the  guests 
of  the   abbey  were  housed.      This 
last     is    a    good    example    of    the 
simple,  large-minded  way  in  which 
the  monks  set  to  work  to  build  for 
ordinary  purposes.     They  built  two 
gable  ends  as  wide  as  they  had  space  for,  or  where  space  was  no  object, 
as  wide  as  the  forest  oaks  would  give  them  cross-beams  for  their  roof. 
Then  they  joined  their  ends  by  straight  thick  walls  pierced  with  windows, 
thick  and  massive  with   no  need  for  buttresses   or   contrivances   to   eke 
out  bad  workmanship   or  save   expense.     There  are  several   remains  of 
their  great  storehouses,  a  wine-store,  and  a  gable  sixty  feet  wide  at  the 


m> 


■w'l-.  «& 


) 


^''^iij 


G(Jte  House,   Beaulieu. 


THE    NEW  FOREST 


^3 


abbey,  and  at  St.  Leonard's,  a  branch  colony  nearer  to  the  Solent  is 
probably  the  largest  building  of  its  kind  existing.  In  the  ruins  of  the 
abbey  there  are  enough  relics  of  interest  to  give  material  for  days  of 
minute  inquiry. 

It  is  hard  to  understand  why  Cobbett,  whose  eye  for  scenery,  and 
admiration  for  the  great  religious  foundations  destroyed  by  Henry  VIII. , 
might  have  been  expected  to  make  him  view  with  sympathy  and  apprecia- 
tion, a  scene   in   which    two  such  elements  of  interest  are  combined,  is 


\Pk. 


i^  '<     *  mrtimnf '  '  ^•'' '■'■'»•' iff 


I 


Beaulieu. 


rather  cold  in  his  praises  of  Beaulieu.  "The  abbey,"  he  writes  in  his 
Ride  from  Lyndhurst  to  Godalming,  "is  not  situated  in  a  very  fine  place. 
The  situation  is  low  ;  the  lands  above  it  rather  a  swamp  than  otherwise  " 
— he  must  mean  the  lands  higher  up  the  stream,  for  the  slopes  above  the 
abbey  were  the  ancient  site  of  vineyards,  and  necessarily  dry  and  sunny — 
*' pretty  enough  altogether,"  he  continues,  "but  by  no  means  a  fine 
place."  Few  people  will  be  inclined  to  assent  to  this.  As  a  site  for  the 
colony  for  which    it   was  chosen   Beaulieu   is   almost  perfect.      The  lake 


64  "THE    NEW  FOREST 

above  and  the  river  below,  meadows  so  rich  that  the  elms  grow  there  to 
a  size  which  rivals  the  forest  oaks,  the  background  of  magnificent  woods 
which  run  back  for  a  mile  to  the  crest  of  the  great  plain  of  Beaulieu 
Heath  which  lies  above,  give  an  air  of  propriety  and  richness  to  the 
surroundings  of  the  abbey  for  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a 
parallel  elsewhere.  The  view  of  the  whole,  looking  up  the  river,  the 
natural  approach  at  a  time  when  the  forest  was  a  trackless  half-desert 
region,  towards  the  abbey,  the  bridge,  and  the  little  cluster  of  houses  and 
the  mill  which  overhung  the  dark  pool  below  the  river,  made  it  as  fine  a 
place  to  look  at^  which  we  take  to  be  the  meaning  of  Beaulieu,  as  could 
be  desired,  and  one  of  the  most  beautiful  heads  of  an  estuary  which  can 
be  found  in  England.^  Cobbett,  however,  had  seen  another  part  of  the 
ancient  domain  of  the  abbey  before  spending  any  time  at  Beaulieu  itself, 
a  place  which  he  declared  to  have  impressed  him  far  more  favourably. 
Neither  Cobbett's  conclusions,  nor,  so  far  as  modern  authority  goes,  his 
archaeology,  seems  quite  consonant  with  facts.  But  the  accident  which 
took  him  past  Beaulieu  to  the  ruins  at  "  St.  Leonard's,"  led  incidentally  to 
a  description  of  that  unrivalled  view  from  the  maritime  side  of  the 
monks'  domain,  which  is  well  worth  quoting.  "  Happening  to  meet  a 
man  before  I  got  into  the  village,  I,  pointing  with  my  whip  across 
towards  the  abbey  said  to  the  man,  '  I  suppose  there  is  a  bridge  down 
here  to  get  across  to  the  abbey.'  '  That's  not  the  abbey,  sir,'  says  he. 
*The  abbey  is  about  four  miles  further  on.'  Having  chapter  and  verse 
for  it  I  pushed  on  towards  farmer  John  Biel's.  When  I  got  there  I 
really  thought  at  first  that  this  must  have  been  the  site  of  the  abbey  of 
Beaulieu ;  because  the  name  meaning  fine  place^  this  was  a  thousand  times 
finer  place  than  that  where  the  abbey,  as  I  afterwards  found,  really  stood. 
After  looking  about  for  some  time,  I  was  satisfied  that  it  had  not  been 
an  abbey  ;  but  the  place  is  one  of  the  finest  that  ever  was  seen  in  this 
world.  It  stands  at  about  half-a-mile  distance  from  the  water's  edge  at 
high-water  mark,  and  at  about  the  middle  of  the  space  along  the  coast 
from  Calshot  Castle  to  Lymington  Haven.  To  the  right  you  see  Hurst 
Castle  and  that  narrow  passage  called  the  Needles  :  and  to  the  left  you  see 
Spithead,   and   all   the   ships  that    are   sailing   or   lie   anywhere   opposite 

^  A   good  inn,  the   Montagu   Arms,  with   modern   comfort  and  old  prices,  must  be 
counted  among  the  attractions  of  Beaulieu. 


tHE    NEW  FOREST 


65 


Portsmouth.  The  Isle  of  Wight  is  right  before  you,  and  you  have  in 
view  at  one  and  the  same  time,  the  towns  of  Yarmouth,  Newtown,  Cowes, 
and  Newport,  with  all  the  beautiful  fields  of  the  island,  lying  upon  the 
side  of  a  great  bank  before  and  going  up  the  ridge  of  hills  in  the  middle 
of  the  island. 

"  The  ruins  consist  of  part  of  the  walls  of  a  building  about  200  feet 
long   and   40  wide.      It  has  been  turned  into  a  barn,  in  part,  and  the  rest 


U  w, 


'>r'^vVN  :  K,,\   1 


/  / 


''//■; 


'.     o^Z- 


^\ 


JW^stei'  _ ,    / 


V     I 

Interior  of  Beaulieu    Church. 


\  \ 


into  cattle-sheds.  But  there  is  another  ruin,  which  was  a  church  or 
chapel,  and  stands  very  near  to  the  farm-house.  This  little  church  or 
chapel  appears  to  have  been  a  very  beautiful  building,  A  part  only  of 
its  walls  are  standing,  but  you  see,  by  what  remains  of  the  arches,  that 
it  was  finished  in  a  manner  the  most  elegant  and  expensive  of  the  day 
in  which  it  was  built.  Part  of  the  outside  of  the  building  is  now  sur- 
rounded by  the  farmer's  garden.  The  interior  is  partly  a  pig-stye, 
partly  a  goose-pen." 

E 


66  THE    NEJV  FOREST 

Cobbett  declared  these  ruins  to  have  been  once  the  hospital  of  Knights 
of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem.  Modern  authorities  say  that  it  was  a  branch 
establishment  of  the  Beaulieu  monks,  containing  their  enormous  granary, 
a  chapel,  and  the  lodging  for  the  workers  of  iron  at  Sowley,  and  of  the 
salt-pits  on  the  shore.  Everything  remains  as  it  was  in  Cobbett's  time 
except  that  the  last  of  the  race  of  John  Biel  has  departed  from  the  farm. 
But  the  beautiful  little  chapel  is  no  longer  a  goose-pen,  but  covered,  floor, 
walls,  and  windows,  with  a  wonderful  growth  of  plants  and  weeds.  It 
abuts  on  the  garden  of  the  farm,  a  handsome  solid  old  house  with  low 
comfortable  rooms  and  a  row  of  dormer  windows  in  the  roof.  Both 
gables  of  the  chapel  stand,  and  the  remains  of  rich  niches  and  carved 
work  peep  out  from  the  ivy  and  trailing  plants.  Flowers  blossom  all 
over  these  walls,  roses,  cranesbill,  yellow  barberry  in  masses,  bramble- 
blossoms,  odd  garden  herbs,  fennel  and  rue,  yellow  mustard,  honesty, 
and  beds  of  "  burrs  "  and  pink  nettle.  It  is  a  perfect  sun-trap,  and  the 
black  ivy-berries  are  as  big  as  currants  and  in  bunches  so  heavy  they 
hang  their  heads.  But  the  remains  of  the  enormous  barn  are  the  great 
sight  of  the  place.  It  is  far  larger  than  Cobbett  says.  The  present 
writer  makes  it  80  paces  long  and  25  wide.  The  gable  ends  are  colossal, 
built  up  without  window  or  buttress.  Apparently  the  task  of  providing 
a  new  roof  to  cover  this  huge  and  high-pitched  span  was  beyond  the 
powers  of  later  generations,  so  the  front  wall  was  moved  back  many  paces 
and  a  narrower  and  meaner  building  fitted  within  the  old  one.  The 
stock-doves  fly  out  of  the  crevices  in  these  huge  gables  as  if  out  of  a 
clifi\  Every  buttress  on  the  side  walls  is  "  trimmed  "  with  golden  fringes 
of  hard  fern,  and  the  ivy  stems  on  the  eastern  end  resemble  the  knots  in 
ship's  cables. 

All  the  way  down  through  the  manor  towards  the  south  the  ground 
falls  gradually  lower  and  lower,  divided  pretty  equally  between  woods 
and  arable  land,  with  fine  farm-houses,  the  view  of  the  blue  Solent 
opens  out  in  the  way  Cobbett  describes.  Bei/e  Vue  rather  than 
Beaulieu  would  be  an  appropriate  name,  the  former  being  proper 
rather  to  the  place  you  look  from  than  the  place  you  look  at.  The 
coast  of  the  forest  is  here  so  sheltered  by  the  screen  of  the  Isle 
of  Wight  hills  that  it  is  not  till  within  half  a  mile  of  the  shore,  beyond 
the  ruins  at  St.  Leonard's,  that  the  tops  of  the  oaks  begin  to  incline  in 


THE    NEIV  FOREST  67 

one  direction,  the  certain  sign  of  sea  breezes.  The  cultivated  fields  run 
down  almost  to  the  beach,  and  partridges  may  be  seen  feeding  in  the 
growing  corn  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  breakers.  Seen  across  the 
narrow  waters,  the  line  of  the  island  stretches  back  eastward  beyond  the 
line  of  sight,  and  the  visitor  might  imagine  himself  on  the  shores  of  the 
Hellespont,  separated  only  from  another  continent  by  the  narrow  strip  of 
dissociable  ocean,  guarded  like  the  entrance  to  the  Propontis  by  castles 
and   fortresses,  where  the   parapets  and   battlements  of  Hurst  break   the 


T/:e   Edge  of  the  Forest  near   L'^mington. 

line  of  sky,  and  the  series  of  batteries  old  and  new  line  the  opposite 
coast  with  signs  and  tokens  that  here  also  are  set  the  gates  of  empire. 
The  long  low  sweep  of  shore  which  runs  from  the  sandspit  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Beaulieu  river  to  the  point  at  which  it  begins  to  be  silted  up  by 
the  mud  deposits  of  the  Lymington  river,  is  fronted  by  shingle,  and 
crossed  by  innumerable  groins  of  oak  trunks  driven  deep  into  the  ground. 
Between  these  the  shore  slopes  up  to  a  green  bank,  which  makes  a 
beautiful  turf  drive  within  a  few  yards  of  the  sea,  backed  by  hedges  as 
green  and  luxuriant  as  any  on  the  manor,  and  fields  of  growing  crops. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  picture  the  "joy  in  harvest  "  of  those  whose   lot  it  is 

E   2 


68  THE    NEW  FOREST 

to  cut  and  reap  the  corn  by  this  lovely  inland  sea,  where  a  man  may 
leave  binding  the  sheaves,  or  the  mowers  rest  at  midday,  and  cross  the 
fence  to  where  the  waves  come  tumblino-  in  before  the  fresh  breeze 
blowing  in  from  the  Needles  and  the  island  fortress  of  Hurst.  Further 
to  the  south  the  shore  rises  with  low  cliffs,  and  the  shrubs  and  flowers  of 
the  mainland  creep  quite  down  among  the  shingle  ;  bramble,  and  haw- 
thorn, grow  among  the  gray  and  colourless  plants  of  the  seashore,  and 
among  the  sea-thistles  and  horned  poppies,  tiny  flowers  of  wild  rose 
blossom,  so  low  that  their  petals  look  like  little  pink  shells  lying 
amongst  the  pebbles. 

Lymington,  the  ancient  port  of  the  Royal  Forest,  as  Beaulieu  was  of 
the  Abbey  Estates,  lies  further  west.  Its  long  well-built  street  runs  at 
right  angles  to  the  head  of  the  ancient  harbour,  at  the  top  of  the  great 
mud-silted  lagoon  which  joins  it  to  the  Solent.  Below  the  steep  hill  on 
which  stands  the  town  are  the  old  quays,  building  slips,  and  wharves,  so 
close  that  the  masts  of  the  vessels  seem  to  rise  among  the  apple-trees  of 
the  gardens.  In  the  meadows  near  the  harbour's  mouth  are  quaint  old 
docks  and  the  remains  of  what  were  once  elegant  pavilions  and  boat 
houses.  But  the  sea  trade  of  Lymington  has  passed  to  Southampton, 
and  its  seaside  visitors  have  deserted  it  for  the  Bournemouth  sands. 

The  change  from  coast  to  inland  scenery,  which  a  few  minutes' 
walk  may  show,  is  among  the  strangest  features  of  a  visit  to 
the  forest  shore.  A  journey  of  a  few  hundred  yards  along  the 
channel  of  a  little  rushing  stream,  brings  the  visitor  before  a  fine 
inland  lake,  sheltered  on  nearly  every  side  by  woods,  and  with 
deep  fringes  of  sedge  and  reeds  ;  a  perfect  paradise  for  wild-fowl. 
In  the  winter  this  lake  is  the  great  resort  of  the  duck,  teal,  and 
widgeon,  which  haunt  the  waters  of  the  Solent,  and  come  here  for  rest  and 
quiet  during  the  day,  or  in  rough  inclement  weather.  Beaulieu  is 
almost  unrivalled  as  a  resort  of  wild-fowl.  In  hard  weather  wild  swans 
haunt  the  quiet  river,  and  geese,  widgeon,  and  duck  of  all  kinds  are  found 
in  numbers,  which  recall  the  days  of  Colonel  Hawker,  the  "  father  of 
wild-fowling,"  whose  exploits  on  the  Solent  in  pursuit  of  his  favourite 
sport  formed  one  of  the  earliest  and  best  of  British  books  on  wild  life. 
The  flamingo  which  was  shot  on  the  river,  and  is  now  stufi^ed  at  Palace 
House,  was  clearly  a  wild  bird  ;   its  delicate  white  and  pink  feathers  are 


^mi  i'i, 

''■i'lM'll'       ';'-  ^ 


111  M  L^ 


':'i:'>'  i„^Q^'^ 


/  n.illli^  11,    in 


70 


THE    NEW  FOREST 


in  perfect  condition,  free  from  any  break  or  soiling,  which  is  the  certain 
mark  of  captivity  in  wild-fowl.  Ospreys  visit  the  river  to  feed  on  the 
mullet,  trout,  and  salmon  peel  ;  and  on  the  heaths  beyond  black-game 
are  still  found.  It  is  said  that  these  are  gradually  decreasing  all  over  the 
forest,  partly  from  the  number  of  foxes,  partly  owing  to  the  ravages  of 
the  oologists. 


A  Creek  on  the  Beaulieu  River. 


As  for  the  Beaulieu  river,  there  is  nothing  like  it  in  England. 
or  rather  like  that  part  which  begins  at  Beaulieu  bridge,  and 
falls  into  the  Solent  nine  miles  below.  All  the  waters  of  those 
forest  streams,  those  marshes,  bogs,  and  swamps  which  you  have 
crossed,  leaped  over,  or  sunk  into  in  exploring  the  northern  forest,  are 
at  last  choked  into  a  wide  mere,  which  would  be  called  a  "  broad " 
in  Norfolk,  by  the  narrowing  of  the  valley  and  some  ancient  engineering 


THE    NEW  FOREST  71 

devices  of  the  monks,  and  then,  through  a  weir  opposite  the  gate 
of  the  Palace,  the  fresh  water  from  the  forest  above  pours  into 
the  salt-water  river  below.  Thus  above  the  bridge  are  water-lilies, 
below  it  seaweed  ;  and  from  that  point  a  beautiful  broad  salt  river,  rapid 
and  sinuous,  sweeps  through  oak  woods,  and  meadows  starred  with 
flowers  like  the  meads  above  Oxford  at  Rosamond's  Bower,  yet  never 
quite  foregoes  that  dignity  which  it  borrows  from  the  sea,  whose 
doubled  tides  advance  to  fill  it  not  twice,  but  four  times  in  the  twenty- 
four  hours.  Here  then  is  a  tidal  river  in  which  "  low  water "  is  but 
only  a  change  for  an  hour  or  two  in  the  landscape,  a  river  whose 
bed  shows  only  yellow  gravel,  or  little  sheets  of  saltings  crowded  by 
feeding  birds,  and  backed  by  woods,  where  the  banks  are  disfigured  by 
no  towing  path  or  foul  factories,  and  whose  silent  waters  are  broken  not 
by  steam-tugs  and  barges,  but  by  fleets  of  shining  swans.  Little  winding 
creeks  run  up  into  the  woods,  bordered  by  close-set  rows  of  dark  oak 
piles,  and  roofed  by  the  clustered  trees,  creeks  in  which  you  might  expect 
to  find  the  "keel"  of  some  prying  Dane  docked,  while  its  blue-eyed 
crew  crept  up  through  the  woods  to  spy  out  the  land,  or  the  hidden 
piraguas  of  the  sea  pirates  who  plundered  Panama.  Nor  is  this  a  mere 
fanciful  suggestion  from  the  scenery.  War  and  opportunity  lead 
to  much  the  same  results,  whatever  the  date;  and  here  in  1704 
Beaulieu  Palace,  nine  miles  up  an  English  river,  was  fortified  by  John, 
Duke  of  Montagu,  with  a  moat,  walls  and  towers  against  the  possible 
attack  of  French  privateers,^  a  precaution  which  seems  less  strange 
than  it  might,  in  the  light  of  the  plunder  of  the  Earl  of  Seafield's 
plate  by  Paul  Jones,  as  to  which  a  curious  correspondence  recently 
appeared  in  the  newspapers. 

The  woods  which  run  for  miles  along  the  river  banks  are  perhaps 
equally  ancient  with  the  oldest  in  the  forest — ancient  that  is  as  having 
always  been  wooded  ground.  But  their  character  is  wholly  difl^erent. 
They  are  the  woods  of  a  manor,  grown  for  profit,  carefully  tended,  and 
full  of  the  close  and  beautiful  "sous  bois,"  or  underwood,  which  in  the 
forest    has  disappeared,  and   left   only  the  "  haut  bois,"   or  timber  trees. 

1  Others  account  for  the  moat  and  turrets  round  Palace  House  by  the  taste  tor 
French  architecture  acquired  by  the  duke  in  his  residence  abroad.  Part  ot  the  woods 
were  also  laid  out  on  the  French  system. 


72 


THE    NEW  FOREST 


The  woods  on  the  opposite  bank  have  that  "  carded "  look,  Hke  curly 
hair  combed,  which  sea-breezes  give  to  trees  as  well  as  to  sailors'  locks  ; 
but  except  for  this  and  the  cries  of  the  lapwings  and  the  redshanks  in 
the  rushy  meadow  below  there  is  nothing  in  the  view  which  opens  on 
leaving  the  wood  to  suggest  that  the  water  in  front  is  anything  but 
an  inland  lake.  It  winds  between  the  hills  exactly  like  a  branch  of 
Virginia  Water.      On  the  low  ridge  to  the  left  is  a  square  built  village  of 


BeauUeu  River  at  Buckler's  Hard. 


good  old  red  brick,  brown  tiled  houses  ;  not  so  much  a  village  indeed  as  a 
street,  running  at  right  angles  to  the  river,  and  looking  like  a  section  of 
old  Portsea  cut  away  and  set  down  in  the  woods.  And  that  is  exactly 
what  it  is  ;  a  fragment  of  the  great  arsenal,  left  high  and  dry  by  time  on 
the  shores  of  the  Beaulieu  river.  Here,  on  the  green  slope  where  the 
cattle  feed  and  children  play,  was  built  of  Nev/  Forest  oak,  Nelson's  ship 
the  Agamemnon.,  64,  the  ship  which  he  was  commanding  when  he  lost  his 


THE    NEW  FOREST  73 

right  eye  at  the  siege  of  Calvi,  the  ship  which  carried  his  flag  in  the 
battle  of  the  Baltic,  one  of  whose  crew,  at  the  battle  of  St.  Vincent, 
tucked  under  his  arm  the  swords  of  the  Spanish  officers  as  if  gathering 
sticks  for  a  faggot.  Those  whose  boding  fancy  foresees  a  time  when  no 
sign  will  be  left  of  the  great  industries  of  the  North  but  burnt-out  cinder 
heaps,  should  consider  the  history  of  Buckler's  Hard. 

In  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  John  Duke  of  Montagu,  Lord  of 
Beaulieu,  and  owner  of  the  great  sugar-island  of  St.  Vincent,  and  inheritor 
of  the  rights  of  the  Abbots  of  Beaulieu  to  a  free  harbour  upon  his  river, 
determined  to  make  a  seaport  at  Buckler's  Hard.  It  was  a  far-sighted 
scheme,  in  view  of  the  American  trade,  which  posterity  has  justified  by  the 
creation  of  modern  Southampton.  Grants  of  land  at  a  nominal  rent,  and 
of  timber  delivered  free,  soon  attracted  shipbuilders  to  the  spot,  and  in 
September,  1743,  the  Surprise^  24,  the  first  battleship  built  on  the  river 
was  launched.  From  that  time  till  the  end  of  the  great  war,  the  work 
grew  and  prospered.  Frigates  succeeded  sloops,  and  battleships  frigates, 
and  each  vessel  after  it  left  the  slips,  was  taken  round  to  be  fitted  and 
manned  at  Portsmouth.  The  Surprise  went  out  to  fight  the  French  in 
May,  1750;  the  Vigilant,  64,  1,374  tons,  in  1774;  the  Hannibal,  74, 
was  launched  in  18 10.  The  Agamemnon,  after  carrying  Lord  Nelson 
through  the  battle  of  the  Baltic,  and  taking  her  share  in  Trafalgar,  was 
lost  in  Maldonado  Bay  in  the  River  Plate  in  1809;  the  Indefatigable, 
the  Illustrious,  the  Swiftsure,  line  of  battle-ships,  and  a  whole  fleet  of 
frigates  were  launched  at  Buckler's  Hard  during  the  latter  years  of  the 
war.  Such  was  the  skill  of  the  builders  and  the  resources  of  the  place 
that  a  seventy-four  gun  ship  was  not  longer  than  thirty  months  upon  the 
stocks,  though  2,000  oaks,  100  tons  of  wrought  iron,  and  30  tons  of 
copper,  were  worked  into  her  fabric.  The  whole  of  this  great  industry 
was  created  and  directed  by  one  man,  Mr.  Henry  Adams,  who  carried  it 
on  for  sixty  years,  and  lived  till  the  age  of  ninety-two.  His  sons 
succeeded  him;  and  the  ruin  of  Buckler's  Hard  was  due,  not  to  the  failure 
of  its  resources,  but  to  the  deliberate  action  of  the  Admiralty.  The 
Adamses  were  commissioned  to  build  four  ships  at  once,  and  for  not 
delivering  them  by  the  date  agreed  on,  were  ruined  by  fines  and  litigation 
at  the  instance  of  the  Government  whom  they  served.  Of  their  once 
prosperous    yard,   no  sign  remains    but  the  houses  they  built,  and   four 


74  "THE    NEW  FOREST 

grass-grown  hollows  in  the  shore  which  were  the  slipways  of  the  battle- 
ships. In  one  of  these,  filled  with  water  at  high  tide,  lies  the  rotting 
skeleton  of  a  wooden  vessel,  her  stem  and  stern  posts  still  upright,  while 
from  her  back  project  the  broken  and  distorted  ribs,  and  bent  bolts  of 
copper.  From  a  tree  in  the  garden  of  what  once  was  the  home  of  the 
Adamses,  there  still  waves,  as  if  in  mockery,  a  ragged  Union  Jack. 

The  squatters'  houses  which  fringe  the  forest,  are  the  subject  of  much 
amusing  legend  and  odd  domestic  history.  They  illustrate  the  unsettled 
and  lawless  condition  which  prevailed  in  the  district  towards  the  end  of 
the  last  century,  better,  perhaps,  than  any  other  feature  of  the  forest. 

A  favourite  site  for  their  colonies  was  on  the  fringe  of  some  great 
estate  projecting  into  the  Crown  Forest.  At  Beaulieu,  for  instance,  the 
boundary  of  the  property  is  called  the  "  Manor  Bank."  South  and  east 
of  the  Abbey  it  abuts  on  high  flat  open  heaths  ;  and  there  the  line  of 
division  is  a  bank  in  the  literal  sense,  a  high  rampart  of  earth  separating 
the  cultivated  land  and  plantations  of  Beaulieu  from  the  wild  and  open 
forest.  To  this  bank,  the  cottages  of  the  commoners  and  squatters  cling 
like  swallows'  nests  to  the  eaves.  It  is  said  that  in  the  old  days  of  en- 
croachments, custom  ruled,  that  if  a  house  were  once  built,  roofed^  and 
a  fire  lit  within,  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  the  Crown  to  pull  it  down. 
Occupation,  and  not  architecture,  was  the  object  of  the  squatters,  and 
the  game  of  house-building  in  the  forest  was  soon  played  with  a  skill 
born  of  long  practice,  which  baffled  the  spasmodic  fits  of  energy  on  the 
part  of  the  authorities.  It  reached  such  a  stage  of  perfection  that  the  art 
of  building,  roofing,  putting  in  a  chimney,  and  lighting  a  fire  within  the 
space  of  a  single  winter's  night  was  at  last  attained  ;  and  the  curl  of  smoke 
rising  defiantly  in  the  gray  of  a  December  morning  was  the  signal  that 
the  squatter  had  triumphed,  and  that  henceforth  he  was  irremovable. 
Some  of  these  little  cabins  are  still  used,  though  more  commodious 
dwellings  have  been  added  to  them.  Others  stand,  or  are  tumbling 
down,  in  the  gardens  of  later  buildings.  Fifty  years  of  settled  and 
prosperous  occupation  have  not  given  them  the  complacency  of  the 
humdrum  cottage.  They  never  quite  lose  the  hasty,  half-defiant  look 
which  is  their  birthmark,  though  their  present  owners  enjoy  a  degree  of 
security,  independence,  and  general  goodwill,  which  their  honourable  and 
industrious  lives  fully  justify.      The  ancient  contrast  of  the  life  within 


THE    NEW  FOREST  75 

and  without  the  "  pale,"  is  nowhere  more  picturesquely  suggested  than 
by  the  line  of  old  cottages  at  "  Hill  Top,"  at  the  edge  of  Beaulieu 
Heath.  The  cottages  are  all  set  in  narrow  strips  of  garden,  won  from 
the  heath.  These  bits  of  ground  are  now  fertile  and  well  cultivated. 
The  houses  themselves  present  an  odd  contrast  of  original  poverty  and 
present  comfort.  In  structure  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  of  the 
roughest,  and  by  no  means  most  durable  order.  Some  are  of  one  story, 
some  of  two.  The  walls  of  all,  or  nearly  all,  are  of  yellow  clay,  some- 
thing like  the  "  cob "  or  "  clay-lump "  cottages  and  barns  of  South 
Devon.  The  roofs  are  straw-thatch,  though  in  some  this  has  been 
replaced  by  slate.  The  material  of  the  walls  seems  hardly  adequate  to 
support  two  stories,  for  in  many  the  wall  bends  inwards,  and  the  lattice 
windows,  and  wooden  frames  seem  to  have  taken  kindly  to  the  curvature. 
In  some  of  the  gardens  the  original  house,  which  gave  the  "  claim  "  to 
the  land,  still  remains,  a  kind  of  "doll's  house,"  which  was  enough  to 
support  the  legal  fiction  of  occupation.  Most  of  the  cottages  have  little 
pony-stables,  piggeries,  and  wood-stacks  attached,  and  though  the  exterior 
is  humble  and  sometimes  dilapidated,  a  glance  at  the  interior  gives  every 
evidence  of  comfort  and  good  living.  The  rooms  are  well  and  sub- 
stantially furnished,  with  abundance  of  brightly  kept  household  gear. 
There  are  flowers  in  the  windows,  pretty  curtains  and  blinds,  and  the 
small  and  pleasing  evidences  of  a  mind  so  far  free  from  the  hardships  of 
life  as  to  find  time  for  the  enjoyment  of  its  minor  amenities.  Above  all 
the  children  are  healthy,  well  dressed,  and  in  many  cases  of  singular 
beauty.  There  is  one  type  which  seems  common  in  these  cottages  on 
the  high  uplands  of  the  forest,  gray  eyes  with  dark  lashes,  small  regular 
features,  and  a  complexion  of  the  most  delicate  pink  and  white,  not  the 
common  cherrv-cheeked  complexion  of  rustic  good  looks,  but  of  a  far 
purer  and  more  refined  order,  which  seems  as  characteristic  of  the 
children  of  the  forest  as  their  quiet  and  reserved  demeanour. 

Men  living  the  life  of  these  commoners,  attract  an  amount  of 
interest  and  sympathy  which  must  have  its  root  in  an  appeal  to  some 
widely  diffused  and  common  sentiment.  They  are  not  a  numerous  class, 
the  owners  of  from  one  to  twenty  acres  being  about  580.  But  these  only 
hold  -^Lth  part  of  the  land  entitled  to  rights  of  common,  which  are  always 
attached  to  some  particular  house  or  piece  of  land.     These  are  let  by  the 


76  THE   NEW  FOREST 

great  proprietors  to  tenants  who  pay  rent  both  for  houses,  land  and  forest 
rights,  and  make  the  same  use  of  them  as  is  done  by  the  small  freeholders. 
Both  are  an  extremely  honest,  industrious  and  independent  class  of  men, 
among  whom  theft  is  unknown,  and  drunkenness  and  improvidence 
extremely  rare. 

The  existence  of  both  is  dependent  upon  the  forest  rights  which  they 
enjoy,  the  nature  of  which  is  better  ascertained  than  their  origin.  In  the 
case  of  many  holdings  the  title  is  extremely  ancient,  in  others  a  claim  to 
ownership  made  by  a  squatter  has  probably  been  followed  by  a  concession  of 
common  rights.  Their  present  extent  is  very  carefully  defined.  The 
first  and  most  important  is  the  right  of  pasture  for  all  kinds  of  cattle  but 
goats  and  sheep,  except  in  the  case  of  the  owners  of  the  Manors  of 
Beaulieu  and  Brockenhurst.  5,469  cattle  were  turned  out  in  the  forest 
by  commoners  in  the  year  1892.  The  second  is  the  "  common  of  mast," 
or  right  of  feeding  hogs,  otherwise  called  "  pannage  "  ;  and  this  is  so 
valuable  that  in  a  good  acorn  year  each  pig  run  in  the  torest  is  said  to 
increase  ten  shillings  in  value,  without  cost  to  the  owner. 

"Pannage  time"  lasts,  properly  speaking,  from  September  25th 
to  November  22nd  ;  but  though  the  Crown  has  the  right  to  impound 
pigs  found  in  the  forest  at  other  times,  this  rule  is  seldom  enforced. 
When  there  are  no  nuts  and  acorns.  New  Forest  pigs  graze  almost  like 
cattle,  cropping  the  grass  with  their  teeth.  Formerly  they  must  have 
been  the  most  characteristic  animal  of  the  forest,  after  the  deer.  Cobbett, 
on  his  ride  to  Beaulieu  from  Lyndhurst,  says:  "  Of  pigs  this  day  we  saw 
many,  many  thousand.  I  should  think  we  saw  at  least  a  hundred  hogs  to 
one  deer.  I  stopped  at  one  time  and  counted  the  hogs  and  pigs  just  round 
me,  and  they  amounted  to  140,  all  within  fifty  or  sixty  yards  of  my 
horse," 

The  gathering  of  the  pigs  in  "  pannage  time  "  was  until  recently  one 
of  the  most  complete  survivals  of  Saxon  days  known  in  this  country. 
The  swineherd  received  from  each  commoner  the  pigs  he  wished  fatted, 
with  a  small  payment  for  each  animal,  A  convenient  place  had  been 
previously  selected  for  a  rough  sty,  where  there  was  plenty  of  beech-mast, 
acorns,  and  water,  "  In  Bolderwood  Walk,"  says  Mr,  Rogers,  author 
of  the  "  Guide  to  the  New  Forest,"  "  there  were  many  favourite  localities, 
as  it  contained  the  greatest  number  of  beech  tree3.      When  the  spot  was 


THE    NEW  FOREST 


11 


reached  by  the  collected  hogs,  they  were  generally  tired  by  their  long 
journey,  but  an  abundant  supper  was  provided  for  them,  and  they  woke 
up  next  day  refreshed  by  a  good  sleep."  This  thoughtful  provision  for 
the  pigs'  comfort  is  characteristic  of  the  high  respect  in  which  the  friendly 
forest  pig  is  held  by  its  owner.  "  Plenty  of  food  was  then  given  them 
for  breakfast,  the  '  herd  '  meanwhile  blowing  his  horn  ;  after  which  they 
had  a  little  liberty,   a  few  old  '  pannage  hogs  '    accompanying  them  as 


Highdife. 


leaders.  They  usually  did  not  want  to  stray  far,  as  food  was  very 
abundant,  and  in  the  evening  were  called  by  the  horn,  and  fed  as  before. 
After  two  or  three  days  they  were  as  obedient  as  possible,  and  would 
assemble  at  any  time  on  hearing  the  signal." 

The  old-fashioned,  wild-looking,  rust-coloured  pig  seems  to  have 
disappeared  from  the  forest,  and  good  black  modern  swine  have  replaced 
them.  But  they  take  very  kindly  to  the  life,  and  no  one  can  know  what 
an  intelligent,  cleanly  animal  the  pig  is  by  nature  till  he  has  seen  him 
roaming    half  wild   among  the    big    trees,   and    apparently    by  common 


78  THE    NEW  FOREST 

consent,  the  leader  in  all  the  daily  movements  for  food,  shelter,  water,  of 
the  mixed   herd  of  cows,  ponies,  and  donkeys  with  which  he  associates. 

There  are  two  minor  common  rights,  probably  very  ancient,  both  of 
which  are  much  prized  by  their  possessors.  They  confer  the  right  of 
fuel  on  the  cottages  to  which  they  are  attached.  One  is  the  right  of 
"  Turbary,"  or  cutting  turf  on  the  heaths,  the  other  that  of  "  Estovers  " 
or  fuel.  The  turf  right  is  not  much  used,  except  by  the  forest  com- 
moners ;  and  while  stick  gathering  is  so  easy  in  the  wooded  parts  of  the 
forest  a  poor  man  need  never  want  small  fuel.  The  rights  of  "  Estover  " 
are  supposed  to  date  from  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  enacted 
that  "  no  inhabiters  of  any  house  builded  since  the  beginning  of  the 
Queen  Majesty's  reign  that  now  is,  shall  be  allowed  any  wood  in  the 
same  forest  to  be  burnt  or  expended  therein."  This  right  was  much 
abused,  as  whole  trees  of  oak  and  beech  were  assigned,  for  the  right 
now  applies  to  the  timber  of  the  hard-wood  trees.  This  is  now  supplied 
from  the  "  waste  of  the  forest,"  and  by  some  curious  result  of  the 
drawing  of  recent  acts,  not  from  the  inclosed  young  plantations,  but 
from  the  old  woods  of  the  Stuarts  or  Elizabeth.  The  right  is,  how- 
ever, being  bought  up  by  the  Crown  when  practicable,  and  the  number 
of  loads  is  reduced  from  800  to  367. 

The  future  of  these  ancient  woods  is  a  matter  of  some  concern  to 
those  who  are  intrusted  with  the  management  of  the  forest.  It  is  feared 
that  as  the  old  trees  die  there  will  be  few  or  no  young  trees  to  replace 
them,  as  the  greater  number  are  destroyed  by  the  cattle  when  saplings. 
Meantime  the  20,000  acres  of  Crown  plantations  are  growing  up  to  take 
their  phice,  and  as  these  are  thrown  open,  the  area  covered  with  timber 
trees  will  increase  instead  of  diminishing.  Meantime,  when  frost  and 
storm  have  widened  the  breaches  in  the  Tudor  woods,  portions  can  be 
inclosed  from  time  to  time  for  natural  reproduction  and  the  preservation 
of  that  balance  of  wood,  heath,  swamp  and  pasture  which  makes  the 
scenery  of  the  New  Forest  unique  among  the  beauties  of  England. 


INDEX 


Adder-catcher,  The,  32,  33 
Alum  Green,  27 
Avon,  The,  6 

Beaulieu,  5,  6,  58 
Abbey,  58 
Gate  House,  62 
Heath,  22 
River,  68,  70 

Bogs,  The  Forest,  26 

Brockenhurst,  10,  34 

Buckler's  Hard,  73 

Cadenham  Oak,  54 
Calshot  Castle,  6,  61 
Charcoal  Burner's  Hut,  19 
Christchurch,  6 
Cobbett,  7,  23 
CufFnaU's  Park,  12,   14 

Deer,  38,  39 

„      hunt,  39,  40 
Dennv  Bog,  23 


Forest  Law,  7,  8 

Gritnam  Wood,  20,  26 

Heaths,  The  Forest,  22,  23,  24 
Henry  H.,  8,  53 
„       HI.,  8,  61 

Herons,  27,  30 
Honey-buzzard,  32 
Hurst  Castle,  61 
Hussey,  Edward,  60 

Innocent  HI.,  61 

John,  King,  58 

Knightwood,  28 

Oak,  28 

Langton,  Archbishop,  61 
Lingard,  6 
Lymington,  5,  6,  68 

,,  River,  17 

Lyndhurst,  10,  12,  24 


Emery  Down,  14 


Malwood,  5,  53,  56 


So 


INDEX 


Mark  Ash,  i8,  21 
Matley  Heath,  23 
Matley  Wood,  24 
Minstcad  Park,  56 

Ober  Heath,  22 
„     Water,  23 
Otters,  28 
Ouse,  6 

Poole,  54,  55 
Ponies,  4.3 
Pony  Show,  48 
Purkiss,  53 

Ralph,  Lord  Montagu,  60 
Rhinefield,  23 
Ringwood,  12 


Rouen,  5 

Rufus,  6,  12,  52 
"       Stone,  54 

St.  Leonard's,  63,  64 
Southampton  Water,  6 
Stony-cross,  52 
Swan  Green,  14,  48 
Swine,  76 

Tyrrell,  Sir  Walter,  52 

Verderers'  Hall,  10 
Vinney  Ridge,  27,  28,  30 

William  L,  6,  10 
Winchester,  5,  53 
Woodcock,  24 
Wriotheslev,  Sir  Thomas,  60 


RETURN 
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